HEADLINES
OSCE High Commissioner and Council of Europe's Secretary General welcome ratification of the Minority Convention On 2 June 2005, Latvia's Minister or Foreign Affairs, Artis Pabriks, met with the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Rolf Ekeus, who had arrived in Latvia on a two-day working visit. During the conversation, Mr Ekeus welcomed last week's decision of the Saeima to ratify the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. He noted with satisfaction that the definition of minorities adopted by Latvia was liberal and spoke approvingly of the norms incorporated in the declaration, which will also allow non-citizens to enjoy the rights stipulated by the Convention in accordance with the Latvian law. The OSCE High Commissioner urged to proceed with the active societal integration process. He was appreciative of the work carried out by the government in the area of naturalisation, which was exemplified by the large number of applications for naturalisation, and invited the government to remain attentive to this issue. On 2 June 2005, in his address to the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, welcomed the ratification of the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities by the Saeima and noted that Latvia had fulfilled its commitments. The Secretary General voiced his appreciation of the definition of minorities approved within the framework of the Convention allowing for the use of the rights stipulated in it also by non-citizens, and mentioned the two declarations attached to the Convention explaining how Latvia intends to implement the Convention. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Current News (02.06.2005) Special Assignments Minister meets with OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities The Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration, Ainars Latkovskis, Deputy Head of the Secretariat, Director of the Society Integration Department, Evita Kirilova, Director of the Department of Minority Affairs, Irina Vinnika, and Deputy Director, Denis Hanov, met with the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Rolf Ekeus. Mr Ekeus expressed satisfaction about Latvia's ratification of the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. He emphasized the significance of Article 5 of the Convention, which stipulates the maintenance of national minority culture and ethnic identity. Mr Latkovskis, in his turn, indicated that the Convention also stressed that discrimination must not be tolerated and that it is important to promote understanding and intercultural dialogue among all residents of the country. The Minister announced that the Secretariat of the Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration would be the main institution to deal with the implementation of the Convention and that the Secretariat would also prepare informative reports to the Council of Europe. Mr Latkovskis briefed Mr Ekeus about the work of the Secretariat in the sphere of minority integration, emphasizing the importance of dialogue in the work with minority non-governmental organisations. "The establishment of the Secretariat has shown the non-governmental organisations that the state does care about them; many new organisations have been formed during the past three years with the intent of protecting the ethnic identity and culture of specific groups. The Secretariat tries to help these organisations by allocating its limited resources and by organising training seminars in order to help these organisations get financing from various funds," Minister Latkovskis said. Projects encompassing more than one separate ethnic group are also very important; for example, the competition "Latvian Children Draw Old Synagogues", in which schoolchildren from 19 schools of 11 Latvia's cities participated. LETA (07.06.2005)
Minister of Education and Science meets with OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities On 3 June 2005, the Latvian Minister of Education and Science, Ina Druviete, met with the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Rolf Ekeus, to discuss the progress of education reform. Mr Ekeus again expressed his support of education reform implemented by Latvia. He affirmed his previously expressed position that each state has not only the right, but also a duty, to ensure that its national minorities acquire the state language, while simultaneously providing the opportunity for these minorities to maintain and develop their native language. Ms Druviete acquainted the guest with the agenda of the conference "Language in Education: Challenges and Possibilities" which had taken place the previous week and informed him that the Ministry of Education and Science has been organising various conferences and working groups, involving all interested parties, in order to evaluate the situation in the national minority schools. Ms Druviete stressed that according to international research the knowledge level of schoolchildren in Latvia was above the European average and that there was no significant difference in the knowledge level between national minority schools and Latvian language schools. The Minister informed the guest that the Ministry of Education and Science was establishing the National Agency for General Secondary Education Quality Assessment in order to control education quality more effectively. Ms Druviete also stressed that bilingual education was in the range of interests of the European Commission and that Latvia could help many other European states with its unique experience. Evaluating the prospects of further education development, the Minister of Education and Science asserted that the measures taken for the promotion of bilingual education in schools were a sound basis for further development and that it was currently important to promote increased use of Latvian as the everyday language. LETA (07.06.2005) Prime Minister meets with representatives of non-governmental organisations On 28 June 2005, the Prime Minister of Latvia, Aigars Kalvitis, at his initiative, met with the most active representatives of the national minority non-governmental organisations in the sphere of integration. The Prime Minister heard the suggestions and advice of these representatives. The representatives emphasised their successful cooperation with the Secretariat of the Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration (IUMSILS) and with the integration ministers during several past governments. The representatives of the non-governmental organisations evaluated positively different programmes which are being successfully implemented by cooperation between the state and non-governmental institutions. A number of cooperation projects were mentioned - in the spheres of culture, as well as ethnic and social integration. The implementation of these projects has been financially supported by the IUMSILS. The representative of the Youth Council of Latvia, Maris Resnis, emphasised the necessity to support the larger projects in the sphere of integration implementation of which requires significant government cofinancing. The need to continue offering the opportunity for advance payments for implementation of the projects was stressed as well. In the opinion of the Chairperson of the "Sustento" Board, Gunta Anca, the IUMSILS is as open and receptive as no other government institution. She expressed the wish to see equal receptiveness and orientation toward cooperation on the part of other government agencies. The representatives of the non-governmental organisations stressed that it was extremely important for the IUMSILS to expand its operations outside of Riga and to cooperate more actively with the local municipalities. This was the regular meting of the Prime Minister and the non-governmental organisations of the sphere before evaluation of the action plans of the Ministry. The purpose of the meeting was to gather information from the non-governmental organisations about particular problems and topicalities so that possible solutions could be then discussed with officials of the ministries. LETA (29.06.2005) Principals of national minority schools discuss bilingual education in a conference On 3 June 2005, Principals of national minority schools met in the conference "Language in Education: Challenges and Possibilities", in which they discussed bilingual education, integration and education quality issues. The participants of the conference were addressed by the Dean of the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology of the University of Latvia, Andris Kangro, historian Leo Dribins, Principal of the Riga Classical Gymnasium, Romans Alijevs, and representatives of other national minority schools from Riga and other cities. The first part of the event was devoted to Latvia's experience in bilingual education, the second - to the topicalities of the European Union in the sphere of multilingual education. The State Education Inspection, in its turn, reported on national minority school compliance with the Law on Education. BNS (03.06.2005) Successful transition of national minority secondary schools to studies in Latvian language On 15 June 2005, the Education Department of the Riga City Council invited representatives, pedagogues and administrators of educational work of national minority schools to speak about the new methods, experience, problems and their possible solutions while implementing the education reform in national minority schools. The representatives of national minority schools concluded in the conference that, although there are still problems in acquiring certain subjects in the Latvian language, the results of studies have improved over the past year. Several secondary school teachers indicated that, despite difficulties, the schoolchildren, thanks to the teachers' support and preparedness, acquire the study material successfully. In order to ensure good study results in national minority secondary schools, the teachers proposed to create dictionaries of terms, noted the need to perfect the teachers' knowledge of the Latvian language, and suggested that teachers should speak to students in a simple language and explain definitions more accurately. Several school representatives also proposed increasing the number of Latvian language lessons per week, organizing work in groups, and speaking Latvian with the schoolchildren as much as possible. Representative of the National Agency for Latvian Language Training, Vineta Vaivade, asserted that it was important to see to it that schoolchildren understood the significance of the Latvian language in order to integrate them in the society. The minority school teachers emphasized that cooperation among themselves and cooperation with the teachers of Latvian schools supporting and assisting one another, had given good results. Since 1 September 2004, the schoolchildren of form 10 of national minority schools have been acquiring approximately 60% of the study material in the Latvian language. BNS (15.06.2005)
Foreign youths get acquainted with the situation of national minorities in Latvia On 28 June 2005, thirty young people from the Netherlands, Slovenia and Romania visited Latvia to learn about the situation of national minorities and observance of human rights. The goal of the youth group was to become aware of the significance of human rights issues, especially among ethnic minorities and among people speaking a different language. The group promotes the integration of youths of different cultures and the development of a healthy attitude towards human rights issues in the European countries, as well as the comprehension of these issues. The visit was a continuation of the project which took place in the Netherlands during the previous year in which the youths got acquainted with the legislative and real life aspects of refugee issues. To better understand the situation of minorities in Latvia, the group's schedule included activities in Riga, where the participants got acquainted with different Riga boroughs, as well as in Daugavpils. The participants of the project were divided in multinational teams; they went into the streets to ask questions, speak to the people, listen to their life stories and carry out photo sessions. The work groups participated in discussions where they expressed their opinions, reported their experiences and analysed what they had seen. The main work method was photography, which will help other foreign youths to see how the residents of Latvia live and to form mental images of the minorities. At the closing of the project, the participants from each country presented photographic albums showing the minorities of Latvia. BNS (28.06.2005)
Lithuanian culture days organised in Riga On 16 June 2005, the opening of Lithuanian Culture Days entitled Lithuanian National Traditions in Latvia took place at the National Minority Culture and Information Department of the Secretariat of the Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration. The ensemble "Bijunas" from the Lithuanian Culture Society took part in the event, and the family Indrali played music and sang songs in the Lithuanian tradition. The Ambassadors of Estonia, Lithuania and Russia, as well as representatives of the non-governmental organisations of national minorities were invited to the opening of the Lithuanian culture days. The two-week long Lithuanian culture days in Latvia began with the opening of an exhibition of Lithuanian folk costumes. All interested persons were invited to get acquainted with the cultural traditions of the neighbouring state. Apart from the folk costumes exhibition, the visitors of the culture days had the opportunity to see exhibitions of applied arts, photography, and books, as well as to participate in different events devoted to the culture days. The visitors of the event could taste the traditional Lithuanian cuisine, participate in the celebration of Lithuanian traditional festivity Jonines, enjoy song and dance in the musical evening "The Ancient Melodies", and learn about Lithuanians in Latvia. The "National Weeks" events are organised in Latvia already for the second year in turn. Apart from the Lithuanian Days, to date Russian, German, Ukrainian and Latgalian culture days had taken place in Latvia. BNS (16.06.2005) 95 thousand people already naturalised in Latvia Till the end of May 2005, more than 95 thousand people had obtained the Latvian citizenship through naturalisation. The Latvian citizenship had been obtained by 95,444 people, including 11,600 under-age children, who were naturalised together with their parents. Since the beginning of the naturalisation process, the Naturalisation Board has received 101,717 applications for naturalisation for 113,493 persons. It has also received 4,119 applications for the recognition of children of non-citizens and stateless persons, who were born after 25 August 1991, as citizens. 3,826 children were recognised as the citizens of Latvia. BNS (14.06.2005) Statistics on naturalisation as at 31 May 2005 For more information:
Newsletter "Societal Integration in Latvia: Towards Mutual Understanding and Cooperation" is a compilation of press releases and news reports drawn from the mass media and official sources. Not all of the views published reflect the official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. |
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
