The leader political party Harmony, MEP Nils Ušakovs, has submitted a petition to the European Parliament, trying to achieve the status of a permanent resident of the European Union to those Russian citizens who were previously Latvian citizens or non-citizens, without requiring language knowledge and minimum income level.
The politician informed the media that the petition was signed by approximately 1,500 people in Riga when Harmony organized consultations on residence permits, in Daugavpils 1,500 signatures were collected by local activist Olga Petkeviča, and more than 500 signatures were collected by the Russian community of Liepāja.
“The purpose of the petition is to force the Latvian authorities to stop all the nonsense and horrors that are now happening with Russian pensioners,
to our former compatriots, former citizens, and non-citizens of Latvia,” said the MEP.
The previous session of the Saeima adopted amendments to the Immigration Law, which provide that Russian citizens’ permanent residence permits in Latvia are valid until the 1st of September, 2023.
If these persons wish to receive a permanent residence permit again,
they must, among other things, submit to the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs a certificate of latvian language knowledge.
It was previously estimated that about 17,500 Russian citizens living in Latvia will have to prove their knowledge of the national language, most of whom are former non-citizens who once decided not to acquire Latvian citizenship, but to accept Russian citizenship.