The European Parliament election that took place last weekend throughout Europe was significant for a number of reasons. For one thing, there was every expectation that more radically inclined candidates would do particularly well from extremist parties such as the National Front in France, UKIP in Great Britain, Golden Dawn in Greece, and so on. In the event, representatives of such groups could, in some cases, crow about victory once the votes were counted, but it is likely that they will face something of a cold shower when they get to Brussels, because their total numbers remain comparatively insignificant against the 751 Euro MPs who were elected in total, and it is also true that extremists tend to be holier than thou about their beliefs, and there is no particular reason to believe that all of them, whether major whack jobs or minor loonies, will find common ground on much of anything.

It is also true that this time around the European Union tried to be all democratic about the process of finding a new chairman for the European Commission. The various political groups in the EP nominated candidates, the candidates trotted around Europe to take part in debates, and it was generally declared that the political group that got the most votes would be the political group that would provide the next chairman (as opposed to selecting the chairman via behind-the-scenes bargaining, as has been the case in the past). In the event, candidates headed toward membership in the European People’s Party group nosed out candidates from the Socialists and Democrats group, and the EPP candidate, Jean Claude Juncker, immediately declared readiness to take over the top spot. Not so quick, said the others. At this writing, it is not a done deal.

In Latvia, as usual, more than a dozen parties and alliances put up candidates for election, and, also as usual, only a few actually surmounted the 5% vote barrier that is required to win any seats at all. Readers will probably know that these were Unity, which exceeded all possible expectations by winning nearly one-half of the overall vote, the National Alliance, which came in at 14%, Harmony in at 13%, the Latvian Alliance of the Green Party and Farmers Union (ZZS) at 8%, and the Latvian Association of Russians finishing the list with 6%. Down at the bottom of the list was a political party called “Sovereignty,” which managed to poll a magnificent 599 votes, or 0.13%.

Of the eight candidates who were elected to the EP, four are returning to the EP for a second or, in two cases, a third term. These are Sandra Kalniete and Krišjānis Kariņš from Unity (second term), Roberts Zīle from the National Alliance, and Tatjana Ždanoka from the Association of Russians (third term in both cases). Also winning a seat for Unity was former Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who has been a member of the EP in the past. The newcomers are former Defense Minister Artis Pabriks for Unity, former television journalist Andrejs Mamikins for Harmony, and Latvian MP Iveta Grigule for the ZZS. Mr. Dombrovskis is going to be Latvia’s nominee for a post on the European Commission (and, dare one whisper it, perhaps a dark horse, last-minute candidate for the chairmanship), so his seat is going to become vacant once the EC is set up, and that will allow Inese Vaidere from Unity to return to the EP, also for a second term.

These eight people were elected to the EP by a comparatively small proportion of Latvia’s electorate – just 30% or so. Saturday, May 24, when the vote took place, was a lovely day in Latvia, temperatures up in the 30s if you’re apt to think in Celsius terms or 80s if you’re a Fahrenheit type of person. That sent many people to their gardens or to the beach. Another issue was that voters in the election could not vote in any precinct they choose, they had to go to their specifically assigned precinct, based on where they were actually registered as residents. Many people in Latvia actually don’t live where they’re registered. And, of course, there are plenty of folks who don’t give a damn about the European Parliament.

I personally believe that this is terribly regrettable. Even if you are planning a day at the beach, go vote first, for heaven’s sake. If your thinking is that Latvia’s eight Euro MPs can’t get anything done, then you’re wrong, and if that’s your belief, why vote in any election at all? I have never missed a vote here in Latvia, whether at the local, national or international level or in the context of a referendum. I consider it my duty as a citizen of Latvia. Apparently I am in the minority in this belief.

Mrs. Grigule distinguished herself in this election by running a massive individual campaign. For the past year, she has been crisscrossing Latvia for various kinds of events. She has published several editions of a newsletter all about herself that were distributed in mailboxes near and far (the words “junk mail” sprang to mind every time I opened my mailbox to find one). True, Mrs. Grigule has been rather shady about where she got the money to do all of this, and she pretty much refused to take part in various debates with other candidates, but her activism was enough to allow her to jump from third place on the ZZS candidate list to first (readers may know that in Latvia, you select a party for which to vote, but then you can put a little plus sign next to the names of candidates whom you particularly favor and cross out those whom you do not like as much). True, big individual spending didn’t work for everyone. Another very visible candidate on posters and the like was the former director of the Latvian National Opera, Andrejs Žagars, who was running on behalf of a new political party called For Latvia’s Development. In the event, the party only won 2% of the vote or so, so no seat for Mr. Žagars.

Mrs. Ždanoka, in turn, needed 28,303 votes to ensure her election against 445,000 actual voters and a potential electorate of around 1.4 million. This is what happens when you’re too lazy to get your butt off the couch and go vote, as one of our more cynical commentators put it here in Latvia. Mrs. Ždanoka has spent her two terms at the European Parliament pursuing the interests not of the Republic of Latvia, but those of the Russian Federation. She has stated support for the idea of reestablishing the Soviet Union, perhaps in a version that she calls “USSR 2.0.” She has constantly claimed that Latvia’s government is hostile toward the interests of “Russian speakers” in the country and that fascism and neo-Nazism are rife in our country. Now she’s going to be back for another five years of such balderdash. True, Mrs. Ždanoka rather much shot herself in the foot with her immense enthusiasm over the “referendum” via which the good people of Crimea happily voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia instead. Her political group at the EP, the Greens/European Free Alliance, grumped about this to the point of suggesting that perhaps she will not be welcome in the group in the new session of the EP. Time will tell whether this comes to pass.

Mr. Mamikins, like Mrs. Grigule, was not first on the list of Harmony candidates. He was fourth. For many years, Mr. Mamikins hosted a popular Russian language television program on the TV5 channel, “No Censorship,” and it is likely that this helped him to gain the recognition that was necessary to move ahead of three other candidates. Among them is the veteran Latvian politician Boriss Cilēvičs, and no one has been less fortunate than he when it comes to EP elections. Ten years ago he was top of the list of a party that fell just short of the necessary 5%, five years ago he was second on the list but was pipped at the post by two others who were below him, and now this upstart from TV land beat him once again. So it goes.

Latvian citizens outside of Latvia cast a total of 2,369 valid votes. The Central Election Commission told me that it does not have data about where each of those votes were cast, but fully 72% of foreign voters cast their ballots for Unity, leaving the National Alliance (18%) far behind. No other party or alliance was even close to the 5% among foreign voters.

The bottom line here is that those citizens who actually did go to cast votes were largely rational. Mrs. Kalniete, Mr. Kariņš and Mrs. Vaidere have done a good, solid job at the European Parliament. Mr. Kariņš has distinguished himself as an expert on energy issues and has been the chief rapporteur on several pieces of legislation – something that is a big deal in the EP. National Alliance voters could have chosen a more nationalistically inclined candidate, but they chose to send Mr. Zīle back to Brussels. He, in turn, is known in the EP as an expert on transportation issues.

As for Harmony, the 13% that it got can be attributed very directly to the fact that this time around, so-called “Russian” voters were spoiled for choice. As noted, Mrs. Ždanoka ran separately, but so did two outgoing members of the EP who were elected five years ago from the Harmony list – former Soviet Latvian Communist Party boss (and convicted traitor) Alfrēds Rubiks, and Aleksandrs Mirskis, who this time represented the Latvian Socialist Party and a party called “Alternative” respectively. If you count up the total vote of Harmony, the Russian Association, the Socialist Party and “Alternative,” you get pretty close to the share of the vote that Harmony won in the last parliamentary election and almost precisely to the share of the vote that was cast in favor of a referendum a few years back to grant the status of a state language to the Russian language. This time the vote was split, and severely split.

This leads to the question of whether one can extrapolate the results of the European election for the purposes of the next parliamentary election, which is coming up on October 4 of this year. Here is a comparison of the votes received by each relevant party in the last election in 2011 and the EP election this year:

Party	2011 election	EP election
Harmony	28.61%	13.04%
Unity	19.00%	46.19%
ZZS	12.32%	8.26%
National Alliance	14.00%	14.25%

Here we see that the NA’s electorate appears to be fairly stable (in the 2013 local government election, the party received around 17% of the vote in Rīga, presenting itself as the main opposition to the ruling cabal of Harmony Center and the oddly named Honor to Serve Rīga alliance). The ZZS did better in 2011 than it did this year, and it is likely that a substantial proportion of those 8.26% of voters cast their ballots for the ZZS specifically because of Mrs. Grigule’s campaign. Unity, in turn, did much, much better this time around than last, and Harmony did much, much worse. Is there reason to believe that the same will happen in October?

Well, no. Unity had a superstar team of candidates for the European election, and by sending many of its potential election “locomotives” to Brussels, it has left itself with a paucity of possible “locomotives” this autumn. Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma is no great orator, and the fact is that the most popular members of Unity at this time are people who have recently joined the party from the now almost defunct Reform Party – people such as Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs and Education Minister Vjačeslavs Dombrovskis (no relation to the former prime minister). There is going to be a great ruckus when it comes time to put together the parliamentary candidate list in advance of October’s election. Even within Unity without the new arrivals from the RP there are factions and factions of factions which can be plenty quarrelsome. It won’t be easy.

As for Harmony, it has been busily rebranding itself as a “social democratic” party and trying to divert people’s attention from the fact that it still has a contractual partner in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dictatorial United Russia party, that it continues to be congenitally unable to admit to the fact that Latvia suffered military occupation between the two world wars, and so on. The 28% of the vote that Harmony got in the 2011 election will be endangered this year if the aforementioned Socialist Party, “Alternative” and the Russian Association take part in the election. In the past, Harmony has pretty much had a lock on the “Russian” vote. That may not be the case this year.

The ZZS has a fairly locked-in electorate in Latvia, and voters in October will probably be thinking about different issues than those that applied to the European vote. It should do OK. And, as noted, the NA also has a fairly fixed electorate, and it is unlikely that it will do much better or worse in the autumn than it has in the past.

Latvians, too, will as ever be presented with a bewildering panoply of parties. Mr. Žagars’ For Latvia’s Development was established by Latvia’s fairly eccentric former Prime Minister Einars Repše. Then there is the Latvian Regional Alliance, whose existence as a “regional” kind of party may not have addressed too many people who were thinking at the continental and not regional level, but that may well not be true in a national election. Former National Auditor Ingūna Sudraba is establishing a party called From the Heart for Latvia, and her popularity as auditor may have something to do with her results in October (though the process has not been particularly promising – the thing that people most remember about the news conference at which Mrs. Sudraba presented her movement is that she fainted during the process).

In short, the vote in October will not be anywhere near the vote in last weekend’s European Parliament election. I believe that it is certain that seats in Parliament will be won by Unity, Harmony, the ZZS and the NA, the main question being whether Unity or Harmony comes out on top. The ability of the aforementioned other parties to get to the electorate will be circumscribed by the fact that political advertising on television is banned for a full month before each election. But for readers of this commentary and for all voters in Latvia’s various elections, the question is the same: Which parties are most likely to work hard on behalf of Latvia, her people, her economy, her security, and her future? There’s plenty of time yet to make up your mind, but already in May I am prepared to offer this suggestion: Don’t vote for the petty parties. That will only be a waste of your ballot, because the votes of those parties which get less than 5% are distributed among the parties that get more than 5%, and if you vote for a petty party thinking that your vote will go to Unity or the NA, it may equally well go to Harmony, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?

I recently spoke with my Latvian-born mother about the danger her native land faces due to Putin’s aggression. My mother was 8 years old in 1940 when her homeland was brutally occupied by Russia for one year. Latvians call those days the “Year of Terror”. Ironically, Stalin used a bogus Latvian request for protection as a pretext for invasion. Putin uses the same pretext today to annex Crimea and threaten Ukraine, Moldova and the Baltics.

When Mom was 9, Germany attacked the Soviet Union, pushing the Russian army out of Latvia. The Nazi occupation lasted more than three years. She was 12 when the Russians drove the Germans out and began a 47-year reign of terror. How she rejoiced, in 1991, when Latvians tore down Lenin’s statue and declared her independence to a jubilant world. Yeltsin’s Russia recognized it as a fait accompli.

But this is 2014. Will Russia invade Latvia for the third time in her lifetime? Does Mom have reason for worry? The historical and political similarities connecting Stalin to Putin, Latvia and the Crimea, and Latvia and Russia are remarkable.

History

Putin has announced his intent to restore the borders of the Old Russian Empire of Tsar Peter the Great (1672–1725). He reasons that since Crimea was historically part of Russia it should be included in Modern Russia. Of course Putin doesn’t acknowledge that the powerful Peter couldn’t defeat the fiercely resistant Tatars. It was only after decades of aggression that Crimea was first conquered and occupied by Russia in 1783. In the ensuing decades Crimea was Russified as hundreds of thousands from Russia were sent there to live, work and neutralize the indigenous culture.

Latvia was forcibly annexed into Peter the Great’s Russia in 1710. Since that time Latvia has been free from Russia’s grip for only 48 years:  (1) from 1918-1940 – when Latvia was independent for the first time; (2) from 1941-1944 – when the Nazis were the occupiers; and (3) from 1991 until the present.  In total, Latvia has been occupied by Russia for 256 out of the last 304 years. This is longer than the entire existence of the United States. Latvia was also Russified during the Soviet years so that today, in the capital city of Riga, only 40% are ethnic Latvian.

Mentality

For Putin, it stands to reason that if Crimea historically belongs to Russia, why not Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia? Incredibly, a recent poll indicated that one in three in Latvia agree with his agenda. These are mostly Russians who get their daily news from Moscow.

But that which gives Crimea her greatest value transcends history. It is about location, location, location. Crimea’s great ports on the Black Sea are highly desirable, militarily, politically and economically. Likewise, Latvia’s location on the Baltic Sea and her three major port cities are coveted by Putin for the same reasons. During Latvia’s most recent Soviet occupation there were dozens of Russian military bases throughout the land. If Russia can re-establish Liepaja as the home of a new powerful naval base, Putin would have an ideal place for nuclear submarines…just like in the good old days.

Latvians understand Russia’s aggressive history and Putin’s twisted mentality. They have cause to be anxious. Most doubt NATO will protect them from Russia. As World War II ended, the Yalta Conference (in Crimea) decided the fate of Eastern Europe. Stalin promised help, free elections and independence. Roosevelt believed him and Churchill was helpless to stop him. As a result, millions were enslaved for almost 50 years.

Similar things are happening in the same places right now. As Putin exploits Western (especially European) timidity, once again Crimea is on center stage. Russia continues to multiple forces on the borders of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Latvia and Estonia, creating pretexts for occupation while cloaking its real intent. Putin is executing his plan with the precision of a chess master.

Latvians have felt betrayed for decades. Their cynicism toward the West is not unfounded. I hope this time they will be proven to be wrong.

 Reason for Hope

I hate military build up and war.  Yet, apart from serious NATO intervention, Russian Special Forces will keep advancing until the occupation of the Baltics becomes a fait accompli. NATO forces must be positioned in the Baltics. A few weeks ago, I thought this is something that NATO would not risk. But I might be wrong.

The US has sent six F-16s to patrol the skies over the Baltic nations. This summer US Marines will conduct military exercises alongside Latvians.  The Mayor of Liepaja, Uldis Sesks, announced his city’s decision to officially invite NATO to establish a base in the Port of Liepaja, near the border of Lithuania. The Mayor pointed out that the Port of Liepaja is already the headquarters of the Latvian Navy, and has more than enough free territory. He also added that the city’s economy would also benefit from the stationing of NATO ships.

Will this, plus the array of political and economic sanctions, force Putin to retreat (or at least quit advancing)? One can never be sure, but now is the time to demonstrate grit by applying pressure on Russia in every category. If not, my mother may see her homeland succumb to the same aggressor for the third time in her lifetime.

The mass emigration that Latvia has experienced in this millennium has alarmed not only Latvian authorities, who in their efforts to reverse it, last year adopted a Reemigration plan. The scale of emigration also distresses the Latvian people, which, according to public polls, is seen as the biggest demographic threat to Latvia. According to University of Latvia professor Mihails Hazans, more than 250 thousand people have left Latvia since 2000 and between 20 to 30 percent have the intention to emigrate in the near future. Is emigration good or bad? Can it be reversed? And from a global perspective, what can we learn from other countries who have experienced mass migration at some point of their history?

These are some of the questions brought up at a discussion with Hans Storhaug, the President of the European Association of Migration Institutions (AEMI) and Maddalena Tirabassi, the AEMI Vice-President when they were visiting Latvia last month in preparation for the 12th AEMI conference which will take place in Riga from September 25 to 27, 2014.

Between 20 to 50 percent return

The AEMI Vice-President, Italian scholar Maddalena Tirabassi, who is also the Director of Altreitalie Centre on Italian migration, when describing recent Italian migration patterns, cites conclusions from a recently published book by her research center „The best of Italy is leaving. Italian migration in the XXI Century“ (La meglio Italia. Le mobilita’ italiane nel XXI secolo.). She says that the majority of people leaving Italy in the thousands today from every region of Italy, but mostly from the Nothern areas, are highly educated. „This phenomenon does not affect just Italians and citizens of Italy, but also migrants from other countries are starting to leave the country too,“ says Tirabassi, adding that it is a big issue, for which Italy has not found a solution yet.

When it comes to Norway, the AEMI President Hans Storhaug, who is also the Director of the Norwegian Emigration Center, explains that the problem of emigration has not existed in Norway since a century ago, when around 900 000 persons left the country between 1825 and 1925 due to a bad economy and unemployment. „Today this wave has changed. Norway is now experiencing huge immigration not only from the Third World countries, but also from the EU countries,“ says Storhaug. He states that most migratory movements depend on the economy of each country, and says it is difficult to give advice, when or how each country can improve their economic provisions to stop the human outflow. „There is a natural flow of migrants out of a country, when the economy is down, and there is a natural inflow, when the economy is improving,“ says Storhaug.

Asked whether Norway ever adopted some kind of a Reemigration plan at the peak of or following the mass emigration, Storhaug explains that initially emigration was not on the public or government agenda, since the majority of emigrants were not highly skilled, but mainly poor people striving for better lives abroad. However, when the government decided that they want those people back, they created programs offering land to returnees for re-establishing themselves, which, as Storhaug describes, did not have much success. „Totally speaking in regards to these hundred years of emigration, around 20 to 25 % of those who left came back. So, around one quarter of the emigrants in the time span of 100 years returned,“ says Storhaug, adding that the return rate in other countries like South and Eastern European countries has been higher. Maddalena Tirabassi confirms it, by saying that in Italy’s case it has been one third to a half.

Both migration experts agree that reemigration is a big and controversial issue. Is it success to go back home? Or is it a sign that you have failed abroad? When addressing this controversy, Tirabassi states that in her opinion the big distinction is the choice of staying abroad or going back. „In Italy, we saw that it is very tricky. Five, ten years ago, people felt free to go back and forth. Now there is a feeling that it isn’t a choice anymore, but they are compelled to stay abroad, because they don’t see any solution to their survival in Italy, not in terms of starvation, but in terms of the quality of their lives,“ says Tirabassi. For instance, minority rights are better preserved in some other countries. Some say that women are treated better in Scandinavia or Germany, there is a better legislation there, more maternity leave and welfare in other countries, which stimulates a kind of welfare migration, adds the Italian scholar.

Migration – a safety valve

„The question of welfare is a big issue in Norway, in regards to the newcomers, particularly from Poland,“ says Hans Storhaug. According to official statistics around 84 000 immigrants from Poland have arrived in Norway, but as the Norwegian migration expert points out the number could be much higher due to the fact that many of them are part of the gray economy. Since the Norwegian welfare model allows foreign nationals to collect their pensions even after returning to their homeland, which many of the immigrants from other countries do, it has created a heated discussion in Norway, fueling criticism especially among the conservative and right wing parties, elaborates Storhaug. From the sending countries‘ perspective, he describes emigration as a kind of a safety valve for sending countries as it lowers the cost of social security payments and reduces the unemployment rate. Many people from the Baltics have chosen this path. As an example, Storhaug mentions Lithuanian immigrants in Norway, who by January this year, numbering an estimated 30 000, constitute the third largest immigrant group in the country . „Many of them – perhaps a majority – are working in the fishing industry in small villages along the west cost. Many bring their families, settling down, taking jobs Norwegians do not find attractive anymore, giving new life to isolated places that otherwise probably would have been depopulated,“ explains the Director of the Norwegian Emigration Center, adding: „They are keeping our long coast alive!“

However, as Maddalena Tirabassi points out, the mass migration in many European countries has happened not only because of a poor economy and high unemployment. „The question is much more complex,“ says Tirabassi, explaining that today there is a new kind of mobility in Europe, where people move around freely for work and study. Recent research in Italy indicates that not everybody leaves to earn higher salaries and to receive more welfare benefits. Tirabassi specifically cites a survey of 1100 emigrants that her center launched recently, which indicated that many people also move in a quest for a different kind of lifestyle. „Otherwise they would not have gone to places like Brazil or Latin America,“ says Tirabassi. She also points out a new phenomenon: „For the first time people are not going abroad to send money home, that is a feature that distinguishes Italian migration now.“ Tirabassi elaborates that in some instances the families would even send money to support the emigrant’s life abroad. She also mentions a recent trend of retired people moving to cheaper countries. Among other factors that influence people’s decisions about emigration and reemigration are such things as weather, climate and language, which may influence a person’s decision whether and where to emigrate. „The weather and the difficulties of the language are not compensated by the welfare state,“ points out Tirabassi.

In addition to promoting migration studies and preservation of the cultural heritage of European migration, AEMI under Tirabassi’s initiative has started compiling migration histories of all 42 AEMI member countries. Tirabassi says that she got involved in such an undertaking, because people don’t know much about migration in their own country, let alone about other countries. She also says that it is important to show how Europe has been made up of migrants and how European culture is a result of the intermingling of so many cultures. „We have seen a lot of cultural influences and an intermingling of people within Europe in the past. So to study Europe from this cultural approach – bottom-up – from the lower mixing of population, may help to create a more unified Europe,“ concludes Tirabassi.