On Thursday, 22 September, Latvia’s Saeima asked the government to develop additional measures to support residents during upcoming heating season and reduce the impact from growing energy prices.
The Saeima gave the Cabinet of Ministers a month to develop and present appropriate proposals for measures to take in order to overcome the crisis caused by growing energy resource prices.
Additional support is necessary due to the rapid increase of energy resource prices, especially for natural gas, and the negative effect this has on manufacturing costs across all segments, competitiveness of the national economy and household expenses, as reported by Saeima’s press-service.
The parliament’s decision also mentions that in order to secure at least partial energy resource price compensation it is necessary to immediately increase state support.
Until now the planned support to compensate rising heating costs was EUR 350 million, which is now considered insufficient. On top of that, it will reach a small portion of residents, as previously outlined by deputies during a meeting of the government and municipal committees. Representatives of multiple municipal councils also expressed concerns about the upcoming heating season.
The government has allocated funding from the budget programme for emergencies in order to provide residents of pension age, disabled residents and survivors between 1 November and 31 December.
Benefits will be paid in the following amounts:
EUR 30 a month if pension, benefit or state social insurance benefit amount or their total does not exceed EUR 300 a month;
EUR 20 a month if pension, benefit or state social insurance benefit amount or their total is between EUR 301 to EUR 509 a month;
EUR 10 a month if pension, benefit or state social insurance benefit amount or their total is between EUR 510 to EUR 603.
If a person receives too much than what is allowed, digits after the comma are left out.
For example, if the old age pension amount is EUR 300.94, the cents after the comma us left out and the person is paid a benefit of EUR 30 a month.
The total state benefit payment period is set between 1 November 2022 and 31 May 2023. The funding necessary to afford the payment of state benefits will be clarified in the State Budget Project for 2023 and the Medium-term Budget for 2023, 2024 and 2025 legislative drafts.
This state benefit will be paid to people living in Latvia who are paid old age, disability or survivor pension, as well as early and advance pension.
The benefit will be paid to recipients of loss of capacity for work or survivors’ compensation and recipients of state social security benefits.
The state benefit of EUR 30 will be paid to persons who are recipients of the supplement to the state family allowance for a child with disabilities; persons of legal age who are granted refugee or alternative status in the Republic of Latvia and who are legally residing in the Republic of Latvia with a valid residence permit or temporary residence permit issued by the Republic of Latvia, and who have reached the age specified in the Law on State Pensions.
Payment of state benefits will start in November, as reported by Ministry of Welfare.