The Ministry of Environment Protection and Regional Development will prepare and submit to the government a legislative draft on the dissolution of Rezekne Council, as journalists were told by Minister of Environment Protection and Regional Development Inga Bērziņa on Monday the 26th of February.
The government may review this legislative draft next week or the week after. Then it will be submitted to the Saeima.
Bērziņa admits it is planned to consider the opportunity of letting an administrator manage Rezekne’s municipality until the 2025 municipal elections without organising snap elections.
On the 21st of February Rezekne City Council failed to adopt a balanced budget. This was the last day for the budget’s approval. Aleksejs Stecs, members of the National Alliance, Latvian Green party, New Unity, Latvian Association of Regions and deputies representing Latgale Party – Ināra Groce, Jāzeps Korsaks, Juris Guntis Vjakse – and Voldemārs Platacis from the New Conservative Party voted in favour of reviewing the budget project. Members of the ruling coalition Together for Latvia Aleksejs Grehovs, Igors Sergejevs, Vladimirs Bogdanovs and Olga Strode abstained in the vote. Deputies Kristīne Kokareviča, Aleksandrs Bartaševičs and Aleksandrs Irišins were not present at the meeting. There was a shortage of votes to add the budget to the meeting’s agenda, so no decision was made in the end.
Vice-chairman of the city council Stecs, who is the acting chairman at the moment, concluded at the end of the meeting that the final redaction of the budget will be reviewed at the next meeting of the Finance Committee. He also said sanctions against the municipality will definitely appear in regulations.
Regulations state that municipal budgets are required to be passed within two months of the approval of the state budget. This means the budget for 2024 should have been adopted by the 21st of February. The ministry reports that Rezekne will not receive the promised EUR 5 million loan needed to stabilise the city’s financial situation.
In autumn 2023 authorities found financial violations that led to Rezekne being unable to cover financial commitments. In this situation the minister of environment protection and regional development decided to suspend Rezekne Council chairman Aleksandrs Bartaševičs. He challenged this decision in a court of law. His colleagues from his party tried to ensure the council’s dissolution and the organisation of snap elections.
The chairman of Rezekne City Council was suspended for significant and systematic violations in managing the work of the city council and his responsibility for the organisation and management of the municipal budget’s implementation process.
Multiple violations were committed in the development of Rezekne municipality’s budge for 2023, as concluded in the audit performed by the Latvian State Audit.
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Latvian ruling coalition agrees to dissolve Rezekne Council
