The design for Latvia’s version of the euro will be determined in a competition announced Jan. 21 by the Bank of Latvia, the country’s central bank.

Latvia is set to join the European Union this May. Eventually, the national currency, the lats, will be replaced by the EU’s euro.

While all EU countries use the same banknotes, the eight euro coins differ from country to country, with one common EU side and one national side (the reverse). One euro has 100 cents, with coins available in 1-, 2-, 5-, 10-, 20- and 50-cent, as well as 1- and 2-euro denominations.

The Bank of Latvia’s competition will determine not only the look of Latvia’s euro coins, but also how many different designs will be displayed on the coins. Countries may choose to have one common national design, or up to eight different designs.

Entries are due April 1. A jury will announce the winner by May 21, the bank said in a press release.

Top prize in the competition is LVL 1,000.

Further details about the competition are available from the Bank of Latvia’s Web site.

Latvians and citizens of seven other new European Union countries would still be treated as non-EU workers for the next two years under a proposal being considered by the Finnish government.

The proposal, which is scheduled to be taken up by the parliament next week, would require workers from the new EU member states to get the Finnish employment office’s approval that there are no workers in Finland who can perform the job, the daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported. The government accepted the proposed legislation Jan. 15.

The two-year transition period could be extended based on the findings of a report the government would have to submit to the parliament, according to the Finnish government’s Web site.

One principle of the European Union is the free movement of people across borders, although many member states have restrictions in place.

The Finnish proposal would affect new workers from eight of the 10 countries scheduled to join the EU in May: Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Only workers from Malta and Cyprus would be exempt from the rule.

Finland joined the EU in 1994.

In 2002, according to Finnish Ministry of Labour statistics, a total of 21,807 work permits were issued to foreigners. More than two-thirds of those went to workers from Estonia and Russia. A total of 483 permits were issued to Latvians, half of them for garden workers.

Latvian broadcasts from the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty will not end Dec. 31 after all, but will continue into January, a spokesman in Washington, D.C., has told Latvians Online.

Before recessing Dec. 9 for the holiday season, the U.S. Senate failed to take action on a USD 820 billion omnibus appropriations bill that includes funding for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees RFERL, the Voice of America and other radio stations. Congress has instead approved a continuing resolution to keep the U.S. government operating.

That means Latvian broadcasts, as well as transmissions in six other Central and Eastern European languages, will remain on the air into January, said Mārtiņš Zvaners, associate director of communications for RFERL.

However, the broadcasts will be “sharply reduced,” Zvaners said. The Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian broadcasts on Jan. 1 will decrease to 15 minutes Monday through Friday, while the hour-long weekend programs will be dropped from the schedule. In addition, the RFERL bureaus in each country will close.

What happens after that depends on what happens with the omnibus appropriations bill.

In proposing its fiscal 2004 budget, the Bush Administration pushed for ending RFERL and Voice of America broadcasts to nations that are set next year to join the NATO defense alliance and the European Union. The money saved would be diverted to radio broadcasts targeted to the Mideast.

Apparently anticipating the appropriations bill would be passed, RFERL Director Thomas Dine on Nov. 28 announced to his staff in the station’s Czech Republic headquarters that broadcasts to Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovakia would cease Dec. 31.

The government’s fiscal 2004 began Oct. 1. Because appropriations for a number of departments have not been passed, Congress has had to approve a continuing resolution to allow the government to continue operations at last year’s funding level.

The Senate is expected to take up the omnibus appropriations bill on Jan. 20, but some senators are saying the legislation may be tough to pass because of growing concerns over “pork,” or funding of programs that benefit legislators’ home districts.

The House of Representatives passed the bill Dec. 8.