The Ministry of Transport (MoT) is drafting a Cabinet of Ministers (CM) order on the suspension of regular transport services with the aggressor states — Russia and Belarus, the Progressives party reported.
On Thursday, the Saeima rejected a request by National Alliance (NA) MPs addressed to Transport Minister Atis Švinka (P) regarding “public passenger transport to the aggressor states Russia and Belarus.”
Švinka stresses that he has begun systematic work to reduce risks — by not extending licences, discontinuing irregular routes, and initiating the process of suspending regular passenger services.
The minister outlined that there are three types of passenger transport services in Latvia: irregular passenger transport (charter-based); regular passenger transport (scheduled routes); irregular passenger transport in transit through Latvian territory.
Irregular passenger transport to the aggressor states — both direct and transit — has been prohibited
since the 1st of November of this year. The ban applies to all carriers, regardless of the carrier’s legal entity or the country of registration of the vehicle.
Regarding the suspension of regular routes — currently three routes to Russia and three routes to Belarus — a CM order is being drafted, the minister notes. Such an order is necessary to impose restrictions on international regular bus services by cancelling existing route permits or not extending their validity.
Švinka explains that the CM order will be based on security considerations and will allow the decision to be reviewed if security conditions change. However, in order to “avoid causing financial losses to the state, it must be prepared in a legally correct manner.”
As a long-term solution, the MoT is assessing the need to amend regulatory legislation
to include security risk assessments as grounds for restricting or suspending permit issuance.
Švinka also points out that in Lithuania, 29 regular international bus routes to Russia and Belarus are currently in operation, while in Estonia such routes operate only for transit (mainly to St Petersburg). A unified and coordinated approach among the Baltic states and the European Union (EU) to restrictions on passenger transport would be important to ensure that the imposed measures have a lasting impact on regional security, the minister believes.
It was previously reported that NA MPs asked the transport minister to explain why, despite the government’s call to avoid travel to Russia and Belarus and security services’ warnings about intelligence, recruitment and smuggling risks, regular passenger transport to these countries is still allowed.
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