The soon-to-be approved Minister of the Interior Kristaps Eklons, whose approval will be voted on by the Saeima this week, is expected to have a tight grip in topics related to Ukrainian refugees in Latvia, lsm reports with reference to LTV programme Rīta panorāma.
He said that in most municipalities in Latvia the situation with refugee accommodation is fine, but there are some problematic cases. Kariņš expects refugees to be distributed among Latvian municipalities based on each territory’s population numbers, which was planned previously but never implemented.
The Ministry of the Interior is now expected to coordinate the process to ensure this happens.
The PM believes until now it was hard to accept that refugees will be a long-term problem. According to him, it is necessary to work on integration of Ukrainian refugees into Latvia’s society. For people who are unable to find jobs for whatever reason, municipalities have to develop accommodation to allow people to stay for a long time.
Kariņš said several municipalities are having difficulties.
He did not deny these difficulties are real, but he also said most complaints are coming in from municipalities managed by parties that are in opposition of parties represented in the Cabinet of Ministers.
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