Officials in Rīga are asking Latvian organizations abroad to weigh in on whether granting dual citizenship is the way to encourage closer ties to the homeland and even return migration.

The Secretariat of the Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration on July 24 electronically distributed a five-question Latvian-language survey that asks for input on a proposal to reinstate aspects of dual citizenship. Responses to the survey are due July 30 and the secretariat expects to have the results ready by Aug. 1.

Results from the survey will be considered as the government discusses what its next steps will be on the dual citizenship question, Zane Lielķikute, public relations director for the integration secretariat, told Latvians Online in an e-mail.

Under Latvian law, dual citizenship is not allowed. Up until July 1, 1995, exile Latvians and their descendants were able to reclaim citizenship without having to give up citizenship in their host countries. According to the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, a total of 30,793 individuals reclaimed citizenship, 40 percent of them in the United States.

In recent months the dual citizenship question has been raised because of the thousands of Latvian citizens who have emigrated to Ireland and other Western European nations in search of work. Many, officials and observers fear, are unlikely to return as they put down roots and start families.

Ainars Baštiks, minister for children and families, has proposed that one way to encourage return migration is to grant Latvian citizenship to children born abroad to Latvian citizens. Under the current system, a child born of Latvian parents in Ireland would have Irish citizenship, but not—apparently—Latvian.

The proposal is one of several discussed by a task force set up by the integration secretariat to examine how to encourage return migration.

“The minister for children and families believes that, looking globally and considering Latvia’s future, every Latvian citizen is important,” Viesturs Kleinbergs, Baštiks’ chief of staff, wrote in an e-mail. “For that reason it is important to insure that a child born to Latvian citizens abroad would have the opportunity to gain Latvian citizenship regardless of which nation they were born in.”

The formula, Kleinbergs said, is very simple: “A citizen is born to a citizen.”

In an interview with the official government newspaper, Latvijas Vēstnesis, Baštiks acknowledged that few children might want return to Latvia, but at present they are not allowed to return at all.

Baštiks’ proposal in recent days has received public support from Artis Pabriks, Latvia’s foreign minister, and Gaidis Bērziņš, the justice minister.

“Because Latvian law does not allow dual citizenship, the parents of children often are forced to renounce Latvian citizenship,” Pabriks said in a July 23 statement, “and after that it hard for our nation to defend the interests of these children.”

Pabriks said consideration should be given to slightly liberalizing the citizenship law to allow children to have dual citizenship in cases where one parent is a Latvian citizen but the other parent is a citizen of one of the other member states of the European Union.

Complications

Complicating the matter appear to be differing interpretations of Latvia’s citizenship law. The Ministry of the Interior, which has responsibility for citizenship affairs, is withholding comment on Baštiks’ proposal, said Laura Karnīte, director of the ministry’s press office.

But she pointed out that the law already grants Latvian citizenship to children born to Latvian citizens regardless of where the birth takes place. Section 2 of the citizenship law states that in cases where both parents are Latvian citizens, the child is considered a Latvian citizen regardless of where the child is born. Section 3, which applies to cases in which just one parent is a Latvian citizen, also allows for the child to be considered a citizen.

The difficulty, Karnīte said, comes when encountering Section 9, which prohibits dual citizenship. The Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, she said, has chosen to interpret the law to mean that dual citizenship is not allowed in cases of naturalization. A person wanting to become a Latvian citizen would have to renounce their citizenship in another state.

Also awaited is the outcome of a case now before the Constitutional Court. Marks Locovs, who in 1994 reclaimed his Latvian citizenship under the pre-1995 dual citizenship clause, is challenging the constitutionality of the citizenship law. His daughter, who was born in Israel, is not allowed to receive Latvian citizenship without giving up her Israeli citizenship. Locovs, according to a press release from the court, argues that the citizenship law is counter to the Latvian constitution, which guarantees equal rights for all citizens regardless of where they live.

Preparations for the case are scheduled to be ready by Aug. 22.

Questions

The integration secretariat’s survey asks five questions:

• In which country do you live or work?
• Are you aware of the secretariat’s task force’s recommendations for how to encourage Latvian migrants to return to the homeland?
• Do you agree that it is necessary to grant dual citizenship to children born of Latvian citizens abroad?
• Would granting dual citizenship encourage participation in Latvia’s democratic processes, such as elections?
• Would granting dual citizenship in some way encourage return migration?

Results of the survey are expected to be added to a report presented to the Cabinet of Ministers by the task force. The report, assembled by the task force in June, includes more than 20 suggested activities that could help encourage return migration, according to a press release from the integration secretariat.

The report identified six major categories of activities, including analyzing reasons for migration and return; public-private partnerships to support business initiatives among Latvian residents; improving the job market in Latvia; improving information sources for Latvians abroad; educating Latvian society and stimulating positive thinking, and reducing barriers to legal, financial and insitutional ties to Latvia.

The current British ambassador this week is paying his last official visits to Latvian ministers, while the new ambassador is scheduled to start his tour of duty in August.

Ian Bond, the United Kingdom’s ambassador, is leaving to take another diplomatic post, according to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London. He became the ambassador to Latvia in April 2005.

Among his farewells will be July 25 meetings with Prime Minister Aigars Kalvītis and Defense Minister Atis Slakteris, according to press releases from the ministers’ offices.

Bond’s biography on the British embassy’s Web site states the highlight of his time in Latvia has been the October 2006 state visit of Queen Elizabeth II and the visit by Prime Minister Tony Blair during the November 2006 NATO defense alliance summit in Rīga.

The new British ambassador will be Richard Moon. Moon joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in 1983. His first diplomatic appointment was as second secretary in the British embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. Since 2005 he has been the United Kingdom’s deputy permanent representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris.

Latvia will be his first appointment as an ambassador.

Legislation that would ease visa requirements for Latvian citizens traveling to the United States is again under consideration in Congress and the American Latvian Association is asking its members to write to key senators and representatives urging its adoption.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have passed bills addressing domestic security, but only the Senate version would expand the Visa Waiver Program to include Latvia. The bills are now headed to a conference committee where legislators will hammer out differences between the two.

“This is our last chance to get the revised VWP established as law,” Valdis Pavlovskis, the ALA director for public affairs, wrote in an e-mailed “Call to Action” sent July 19 to Latvian-Americans.

The Senate bill does not specifically mention Latvia, but would extend the Visa Waiver Program to “foreign countries that are allies in the war on terrorism.” Latvia is considered such in part because it has troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, although almost all troops in the latter were pulled out in June. Only three Latvian soldiers remain stationed in Iraq, while about 80 serve in Afghanistan. Three men have been killed in Iraq since 2003, when Latvian soldiers first began deployment there.

The Senate’s version of the bill—the Improving America’s Security Act of 2007, or Senate Bill S.4—and the House version—Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007, or H.R. 1—are expected to go before the conference committee in the coming week, Pavlovskis said.

Under the Senate bill, admission to the Visa Waiver Program would not be automatic. The Secretary of Homeland Security would still have to approve a country’s application.

Latvian officials have been working for several years to convince the United States to grant visa-free entry to its citizens. U.S. citizens entering Latvia may do so without a visa and stay up to 90 days.

A total of 27 countries now participate in the Visa Waiver Program, according to the U.S. Department of State.