A very strong characteristic of the Baltic people is how they are united about preserving their cultural heritage, language, and society resulting in a specific form of nationalism. Immigration is a very sensitive part of this: more foreigners mean, proportionally, less indigenous people. As a result, the indigenous language, culture, and society are threatened. Most of Baltic politics have been subordinated to such sentiment. For example, why is there no metro in Riga? Because Latvians were against it. Facing low birth rates and years of all forms of ethnic cleansing by the Soviet Union, Latvians were worried that the immigration of workers from other parts of the Soviet Union could decrease even more their share in Latvia’s social fabric. In 1988, a wave of protests with slogans like “No – metro, No – immigration,” showed the real motives of the dissatisfaction among Latvians.
This month, immigration is again on spot. On March 13, President Valdis Zatlers returned to the Latvian Parliament a polemic amendment on the Immigration Law. In summary, the amendment aims to ease foreign investors possibilities to obtain a temporary residence permit for up to 5 years. Thus, two kinds of investors are contemplated: (a) anyone investing 25,000 lats (35,700 euros) or more, employing at least 5 EU citizens, and paying no less than 10,000 lats in taxes; and (b) anyone with at least 100,000 lats to invest in real estate. Strangely, it has been presented as a real chance for Latvia to recover its economy. This idea is naive.
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