Voting survey shows Latvia poised for membership

Date:18/09/03

THE final obstacle towards making EU enlargement a reality should be removed when Latvian voters go to the polls this Saturday (20 September).

Results of a government-commissioned survey published on Tuesday place support for joining the Union at nearly 57% of the electorate, opposition at 23%, while 20% of voters remain undecided. Latvia is the ninth incoming EU state to ask its population if it shares the membership ambitions of the ruling elite. (Cyprus, the tenth prospective member, has opted not to hold a referendum).

Under national legislation, more than 50% of voters must tick the "Yes" box on their ballot papers for the referendum to be carried. It also requires that electoral turnout must be at least half that seen in the country's last parliamentary election, when 70% of all eligible voters cast their ballots.

While the referendum's passage is bound to spark comments about the Baltic state finally severing its links with the former Soviet Union, the focus of voters and politicians has been more on a hard-headed cost benefit analysis of membership than on its historical resonance.

Ministers have been keen to stress how much Latvians will receive for everything from motorways to rural development. In an interview with politika.lv website, Gintis Freimanis, the deputy state secretary at the finance ministry, underscored predictions by the European Commission that the amount of aid Latvia receives from the EU budget will rise from €292 million in 2004 to €498 million in 2006, while the amount it will contribute will increase from €77 million to €122 million in the same period.

But Freimanis stressed that benefits cannot be quantified in purely monetary terms: "Take education, for instance. Our young people will have the right to study in other countries. That cannot be calculated on the basis of money alone."

IFES Election Guide: Homepage http://www.electionguide.org/index.php

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