Latvian Prime Minister Evika Siliņa does not regret the insulting things the directed at Saeima deputy Edvards Smiltēns. She believes her former colleague had personally insulted her.
“Combined List” party’s activists released a video on social networks, showing a moment of the Saeima meeting during which Siliņa angrily yelled at Smiltēns, saying “Don’t choke! Don’t vomit!”
The heated exchange was recorded on Friday, the 6th of December, during discussions of Latvia’s budget plan for 2025.
The PM told journalists on Monday, the 9th of December, that Smiltēns had previously insulted her at the meeting by saying that she is unable to lead the government, despite the fact that this is the second budget her government has submitted to the parliament.
“I don’t regret what I said. I am a living, emotional person. I believe I have the right to respond to such insults,” said the Latvian PM.
“Definitely not,” said Siliņa, answering the question if she intends to apologize for her words. Smiltēns and “Unity” have a history together – he was this party’s representative in the past. However, their relationship became tense after his departure. The mutual dislike is mentioned as a significant reasons why “New Unity” and “Combined List” are not in the same government.
At the end of summer of 2024, records were leaked, indicating that once Saeima Speaker Edvards Smiltēns was providing consulting services to then a “Unity” office manager Normunds Orleāns, when the latter was involved in the internal scandal at “Unity”. Records available to LETA, showed that Orleāns had consulted with Smiltēns in relation to the situation inside “Unity” in the time when the party was accused of paying envelope wages and influencing Saeima elections. Certain recordings between Orleāns and Smiltēns imply that the latter was giving the former advise on how he should act when presenting accusations to the party and how the two should coordinate efforts, should it come to that.
On the 6th of December, after three days of discussions, Saeima deputies finally agreed and approved the state budget plan for 2025 and accompanying amendments. According to the new budget plan, Latvia’s budget deficit will reach 2.9% of GDP next year.
52 members of the Saeima voted in favour of the budget plan. 34 voted against.
The total time spent reviewing the budget, breaks included, was 33 hours.
During reviews of budget proposals, the majority of the Saeima also approved four proposals from the opposition, granting more than EUR 200 000 of budget funds towards those proposals.