Farmers outraged by the blatant irresponsibility of Saeima members and demand intervention from top state officials

The association “Farmers’ Saeima” expresses its indignation and condemnation of the irresponsible attitude of seven members of the Saeima Committee on National Economy, Agrarian, Environmental and Regional Policy towards the draft law, which includes the regulation of the acquisition of a strategically important Latvian resource – land used for agriculture. The June 12 committee meeting was scheduled to discuss the eagerly awaited and labor-intensive draft law “Amendments to the Law “On Land Privatization in Rural Areas””, but it was not implemented due to the lack of a quorum in the committee, thus it is impossible to approve the amendments to the law at the last plenary session of the Saeima in the spring session.

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This situation was created by 7 members of the commission who did not attend the commission meeting at all or left it before the important issue was considered. Juris Lazdiņš, Chairman of the Board of the Association “Farmers' Council”: “We are very unpleasantly surprised by the attitude of the aforementioned deputies towards such an important issue for our country's economy. The delaying of the bill is considered the greatest damage that has been done to Latvian agriculture in the last twenty years! A reasonable question arises, in whose interests are these deputies acting – the people or anonymous sponsors, whose activities would be threatened by the entry into force of the criteria for the acquisition of agricultural land? We call on every voter to think very carefully about casting their vote in the upcoming elections in the autumn for such servants of the people who do not honestly fulfill their duties.”

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Taking into account the meeting that did not take place on Thursday, it is not possible to forward the draft law for consideration at the Saeima plenary session on June 19 of this year. This date was the last deadline to prevent the agricultural land market from operating without any restrictions in the future period, when the previous moratorium is no longer in force as of May 1. In order to achieve an urgent solution to the situation, the association “Farmers’ Saeima” has appealed to the President of Latvia Andris Bērziņš, Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma and Speaker of the Saeima Solvita Āboltiņa with a request to convene an extraordinary Saeima session on July 3 of this year to consider the draft law “Amendments to the Law “On Land Privatization in Rural Areas””. To implement this, the ZSA requests to extend the spring session of the Saeima or convene an extraordinary session and close it only after the adoption of the draft law. The Farmers' Parliament also expects that the Saeima members will correct the mistake and complete the consideration of the prepared and submitted proposals in the Commission's working groups this week.