For the sake of security, the European Union must have a broad reform of migration policy, while Latvia needs to increase its defense budget by 25% in the coming years. These are the main messages of the annual Minister of Foreign Affairs' report and the subsequent foreign policy debate.
In his address to Parliament, Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkēvičs reminded that we are living in a tense time - a time when Russia is pursuing a confrontational and revisionist foreign policy which, together with the concentration of troops on the Ukrainian border, poses a threat of military escalation to the entire region that has been unprecedented in recent years, while the illegitimate Belarusian regime continues its hybrid assault on the EU and NATO's eastern border through artificial migration flows.
In response to this observation, Edvīns Šnore, representing the National Alliance (Nacionālā apvienība), recalled that at a time when the migration crisis was in southern Europe, Latvia sent its coastguard vessel and border guards there as part of Frontex. However, when Latvia is experiencing a similar crisis, the help given by our European Union colleagues is insufficient.
"Today, the crisis is in our region and we expect adequate assistance from Frontex. But as our border guards admit, Frontex colleagues are more busy writing complaints about the work of our border guards than helping prevent illegal border crossings," says the politician, who stresses that Latvia, together with other countries in the region, must try to change this situation and convince its partners that the main task of the border guards is to protect the external EU border, "not to act as a signalman, merely regulating migrant flows".
Minister of Defense Artis Pabriks also agrees that not all EU officials' understanding of the methods used in hybrid warfare is in line with current developments on the international scene.
"The migration policy that exists in the EU today corresponds perhaps to the 1990s understanding of life and values, but not to today's understanding.
We cannot have a situation where, as we have heard, Commissioner Johansson (Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner for Home Affairs) comes and says: we are not going to give you any money for border security, but we are going to give you money for refugee camps. That, my dear friends, is not going to work anymore," A. Pabriks said, adding that thanks to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the situation has improved somewhat, but Latvia needs to be very active to bring about a change in the common migration policy.
After listening to his coalition partners, E. Rinkēvičs said that the representatives of the Member States had already started talks on the issue, but it would take several years to reach a full consensus in the 27-member Union.
The Minister's speech and the debate among MPs repeatedly stressed the need to increase the defense budget, which currently accounts for 2% of gross domestic product, but should be increased by 25%, or 0.5 percentage points, over the next few years. This year, the Latvian defense budget has been allocated €757.17 million, which is €49.35 million more than last year.
This idea was echoed by A. Pabriks, who has already started talks with his colleagues in the government and hopes that the 2.5% of GDP mark will be reached in the next three years.
"We need to develop our armed forces to the maximum (..) At the beginning of this week, I have suggested to my colleagues in the government, I have spoken to our Prime Minister and also to the President's Office about the need to increase the defense budget in the coming years (..)
And our idea for the defense sector is as follows: in the next three years, I think we need to achieve that the defense budget, with the support of you, the Saeima, is two and a half percent of the gross domestic product,"
the Minister of Defense said.
As a diplomat, the Minister of Foreign Affairs also reminded about the country's economic capacity to achieve this goal. "Of course, we have to take into account the overall state of the country's finances, we have to see how much and what we can allocate, but 2.5 percent over the next two to three years should still be the target to aim for, because I think that the situation we are in will not be absorbed so easily and we will be under constant strain," E. Rinkēvičs warned.
The increase in defense spending has traditionally been opposed by representatives of Harmony (Saskaņa). For example, Ivars Zariņš expressed the opinion that the news about a possible war in Ukraine are deliberately inflated to distract the public from more pressing problems.
"This information noise is beneficial for many. Most of all for the countries who are unable to finish their homework and are therefore working hard to exploit these fear vibes to distract the public from their own mistakes or failures,
to make people fear and dwell on something else, something even more terrible. And we don't even have to look to our neighbors to see examples of this," says I. Zariņš.
He points out that maintaining the tension of the threat of war creates a very convenient cover for various procurements which, if one were to assess what is happening adequately, would be irrational.
"For example, the attempts to increase our military spending by several million more, supposedly to strengthen our security in line with the new threat," the MP added.
Valērijs Agešins, who serves on the Saeima National Security Committee, was also skeptical about the need to increase the defense budget. "The results of various polls indicate that a number of domestic problems are considered more important than external threats. I see a dominance of socio-economic issues in the Latvian public opinion on foreign policy and national security. I think there is a consensus in our society that economic and personal security issues are still more important than external threats to national security," said V. Agešins.