MOSCOW, Sep 1 Citizens living in Latvia Russia, who have not passed the exam in the Latvian language, will begin to receive letters from the Ministry of Internal Affairs with an order to leave the country from September.
According to the head of the parliamentary commission on citizenship, migration and social cohesion, Ingmars Lidaka, about 6 thousand citizens of the Russian Federation can be deported from the republic within three months.
Along with the termination of a residence permit, a person will lose the opportunity to receive many services in Latvia, and they will also stop paying a pension.
According to the amendments to the law on immigration, the possibility of re-taking the Latvian exam for Russians will remain until November 30, in which case their residence permit will be extended until the end of 2023. Persons under the age of 15 and over 75 are exempted from the exam.
A number of politicians and public organizations, according to Rus.LSM.lv, are calling for a revision of the law. In particular, Martin Levushkan, chairman of the board of the Russian Voice for Latvia society, said that he favors individual consideration of each case, since people may have different reasons why they do not pass the exam. According to him, Latvia can provide only 400 people a year with Latvian language courses.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Latvia in August 2022 decided to extend temporary residence permits in Latvia to citizens of the Russian Federation only in exceptional cases, and issue a permanent residence permit to them only if they pass an exam in the state language at a level not lower than A2 by September 2023.
Earlier, the Saeima of Latvia adopted a draft law on the transition of all education to the Latvian language within three years, the Russian language can be studied only as a “minority language”. About 1.8 million people live in Latvia, of which about 40% are Russian speakers. At the same time, Latvia has one state language – Latvian. The Russian language has the status of a foreign language.
