The number of Latvian citizens in the Estonian border town of Valga is steadily increasing every year, but so far 2023 has not started with a rapid influx of Latvians, reports the Estonian media ERR News.
The municipality of Valga points out that it is still too early to draw conclusions about whether more support for families will increase the number of Latvians in Estonia. Impact will be visible probably only after about half a year.
A year ago, the family allowance was increasing in Latvia, but it is still lower than in Estonia. The latest amendments to the Estonian legislation increase the differences even more.
Greater support for families and better job opportunities have urged some Latvians living near the Estonian border to declare their residence in Estonia. However, local municipality leaders believe that a special wave of migration from Latvia is unlikely. Monika Rogenbaum, head of Valga municipality, said that so far no special influx of Latvians has been noticed. She added: «Last year we added 103 Latvian citizens, while 48 left.
If we are talking about the total population of Valga Municipality, we have 15,486 people and 1,338 of them are Latvians. There has been a kind of steady increase in the number of Latvian citizens every year.
We are not seeing any kind of exceptional increase at the moment. In January this year so far, we have not yet had a single Latvian register their residence in Valga Municipality.»
The head of the municipality of Valka, Vents Armands Krauklis, also believes that it is too early to draw conclusions about the impact of support on the residents of border towns. However, the impact is already there – Latvians who have declared themselves in Valga pay taxes in Estonia, at the same time their children choose to study in Latvia. Businesses, on the other hand, believe that it will be increasingly difficult to find workers, as the increased support may lead some to decide that it is easier not to work at all.
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