On Monday, 24 November, the Baltic Assembly, the Nordic Council, the Benelux Parliament, the GUAM Parliamentary Assembly and the Visegrad countries held parliamentary consultations at the Saeima. The main item on the agenda was security in Europe and Central Asia.
Press releases
Honourable President of Latvia,
Mūrniece at the ceremonial sitting of 18 November: The state can exist as long as its people want it to exist (18.11.2014.)
“The state can exist as along as its people want it to exist or, in other words, as long as the people have a strong desire for their own state. It is a nation’s political choice – to exist as a titular nation with its own language, culture and collective memory, and to desire its own nation state. With this strong desire we as a society that is united by belonging to Latvia have become stronger, more cohesive, more similar in our understanding of the events of our past, and we feel the ground more solid under our feet,” said Ināra Mūrniece, Speaker of the Saeima, on Tuesday, 18 November, when addressing the participants of the ceremonial sitting held at the Saeima in honour of the 96th anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic of Latvia.
Lolita Čigāne to chair the European Affairs Committee (11.11.2014.)
Today, at the first meeting of the European Affairs Committee, its members elected Lolita Čigāne as the Chairperson of the Committee.
Today, at the first meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Saeima, its members elected Ojārs Ēriks Kalniņš as the Chairman of the Committee.
On Wednesday, 5 November, during its extraordinary plenary sitting, the Saeima, with 61 votes for and 39 votes against, approved Laimdota Straujuma as the Prime Minister and gave a vote of confidence to her Cabinet of Ministers.
Ināra Mūrniece elected as the Speaker of the Saeima (04.11.2014.)
On Tuesday, 4 November, Ināra Mūrniece was elected as the Speaker of the 12th Saeima.
Presidium of the 12th Saeima is elected (04.11.2014.)
On Tuesday, 4 November, the new convocation of the Saeima elected its Presidium.
Mandates of MPs of the 12th Saeima approved (04.11.2014.)
On Tuesday, 4 November, during its first sitting, the new convocation of the Saeima approved the mandates for all 100 MPs. Sixty-nine of the new MPs have previous parliamentary experience, while 31 are first-time MPs. After each member gave a solemn oath of office, mandates were approved for 24 MPs elected from the Social Democratic Party Concord, of which there are three new MPs – Regīna Ločmele-Luņova, Jūlija Stepaņenko and Zenta Tretjaka. The remaining 21 MPs - namely, Valērijs Agešins, Jānis Ādamsons, Boriss Cilevičs, Sergejs Dolgopolovs, Andrejs Elksniņš, Marjana Ivanova-Jevsejeva, Andrejs Klementjevs, Ivans Klementjevs, Sergejs Mirskis, Vladimirs Nikonovs, Ņikita Ņikiforovs, Vitālijs Orlovs, Igors Pimenovs, Sergejs Potapkins, Ivans Ribakovs, Artūrs Rubiks, Raimonds Rubiks, Jānis Tutins, Jānis Urbanovičs, Ivars Zariņš and Mihails Zemļinskis - served in the previous convocation of the Saeima.
This year the Baltic Assembly Prize for the Arts has been awarded to Alvis Hermanis, director of the New Riga Theatre, for creative achievement in staging several plays, especially Oblomov. The award ceremony of the Baltic Assembly Prize for Literature, the Arts and Science, as well the Baltic Assembly medals for upholding the unity and cooperation of the Baltic States, took place during the 33rd Session of the Baltic Assembly on Thursday, 23 October in Tallinn, Estonia.