From 1 September onward Latvian Ministry of Economics and institutions under its direct subordination will start providing information and communicating with clients only in Latvian language.
The order issued by minister Ilze Indriksone, based on Section 10 of the Official Language Law, provides for Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, Consumer Rights Protection Centre, Latvian National Accreditation Bureau, State Construction Control Bureau of Latvia, and the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia to start providing information and communicate with clients only in Latvia’s state language – Latvian – starting from 1 September 2022.
With that neither the ministry nor any of its institutions will no longer require Russian language skills in job offers or allow employees to use Russian language in day-to-day work.
According to Indriksone, like in other parts in Europe, Latvian state institutions and their representatives should use only the state language to communicate with residents and media.
«Otherwise the country not only accepts special status of Russian language over languages used by other national minorities but also promotes multilingualism. It’s time to change this.»
A similar proposal was sent to companies in which the Ministry of Economics is a shareholder, asking them to communicate with clients using only Latvian language.
This proposal was sent to Latvenergo and its subsidiary Sadales tīkls. Possessor public asset management company also received this proposal, in which the company is asked to invite Tet LLC, which provides TV and internet contents, to prioritize audio language choice and automatically make Latvian the default language, European languages or English the next in line, and present a third country language as the last offer.
Latvian Ministry of Economics to communicate with clients in Latvian language only
