The reaction of the State of Latvia to the decrease of the population is the replacement of the Population Register with the Register of Natural Persons, in which entries on foreigners living in Latvia will be added alongside the entries on Latvian nationals living abroad. These changes took effect on June 28.
The data of the Register of Natural Persons are created by taking and combining the data of the Population Register and the Register of Civil Status Documents. This would not increase the number of persons listed in the new register, but as Madara Puķe, Head of Public Relations of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA) that is responsible for this register, emphasizes,
“the most significant change that comes into effect is that all foreigners will be registered in the register. It will include data on foreigners who have a legal connection with the Republic of Latvia, on the basis of which mutual rights and obligations in the field of real estate, business, health, taxes, benefits, asylum and education are developing or have developed, and who wish to receive a Latvian identity card, to promote the development of economic, scientific, educational or cultural links."
In that case, the number of people registered by Latvia will increase, at least initially, to a noticeable extent, in contrast to the data of the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) on the declining population of the country.
The difference between the data of the CSB and the OCMA, which were expressed at the beginning of this year with the equation 1,893,223=2,069,089, will become even greater. Namely, this year the CSB has already conducted a census, which makes it even safer to say that just under 1.9 million people live in Latvia. However, much more than two million people "have a legal connection with the Republic of Latvia". Never mind that they do not live here and they also have connections with other republics (other countries). But after all, it is better if the number of people presented is bigger than smaller. The larger the population of a country, the lower the burden on each citizen of returning money to the state so that it can pay at least interest on its debt. Population growth is the main argument that countries can use to reassure creditors that not only will the interest on old debts be paid, but the amount of debt can be further increased. Creditors may not research the country criteria for including people in their population data. It will suffice for the data to be provided by the public authority OCMA. Moreover, it is possible that some people without Latvian citizenship or permanent resident status can provide a much larger circulation of money in Latvia, of which the Latvian state will also have a share, than 100 citizens and 100 non-citizens combined.
Renaming the Population Register as the Register of Natural Persons relieves the state of the impression created by the old name of the register that the state lists its inhabitants in this register. Legally, of course, even in the past it was just an impression, not a fact. After all, it is up to the state to determine the criteria for entering a person in one or another register. Requiring living in Latvia for a person to be registered in the Population Register had been abolished a long time ago. M. Puķe reminds that the respective amendments to the Population Register Law entered into force on July 1, 2010, and are now present in the Register of Natural Persons. Namely, being listed in these registers hasn't depended on the person living in Latvia for more than a decade now.
Abolishing the listing of the emigrants coincided with the moment when the wave of emigration caused by the global economic crisis of 2008 and its consequences in Latvia had reached its peak. People moved to countries that were able to emerge from the crisis with less inconvenience to the people who were actually located in those countries. The difference between the number of the population registered and those living in Latvia was convincingly recorded by the 2011 census conducted by the CSB. Since then, the gap between CSB and OCMA data has fluctuated around two hundred thousand people. The number of people reported in both databases is declining at about the same rate. In the future, the number of entries managed by the OCMA in the Register of Natural Persons will increase, as the overcrowded world will certainly find ways to fill the void caused by the extinction of Latvia's native people.
Changes in both databases are likely to be dictated by the predominance of mortality over birth. The CSB does not claim to record how many people die or produce offspring after they leave Latvia. The number of newborns is supplemented with information about children whose parents have provided such information about their offspring to Latvian embassies abroad, but the number of such children is not large. With regard to the dead, the position of the CSB is simple - if there is no news then there is no person, which does not prevent this person from appearing in Latvia again if he was away not because of death, but because of traveling around the world. On the other hand, the OCMA must be vigilant so that the records it maintains of those seemingly living abroad do not turn into a list of the dead. If a person dies, they should be removed from this list. However, a person should not be removed from the register on the basis of rumors and assumptions. The fact of the death of a Latvian citizen abroad shall be registered by the OCMA if a relative of the deceased person or another interested person submits documents certifying the fact of death issued by the competent foreign authorities to the OCMA. This promises, if not endless, then a very long stay in the Latvian register for persons whose relatives no longer have any interest in Latvia. Notaries and other officials who handle cases regarding the determination of property ownership, granting of a pension, etc., may act in place of relatives. If the deceased does not leave any things to be arranged in connection with Latvia, then in time he will end up in the section between the living and the dead, which in OCMA terminology is called the “passive status”.
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