“This is a year of radical challenges; one can even say that this is the “moment of truth” for the Neighbourhood Policy of the European Union. It is a reality that cannot be ignored, and it must be the point of departure for any analysis of the state of play and future vision of the EU’s foreign policy,” said Lolita Čigāne, Chairperson of the European Affairs Committee, on Tuesday, 2 December, at the LII COSAC held in Rome during the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

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.

“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.

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. 

On Tuesday, 4 November, Ināra Mūrniece was elected as the Speaker of the 12th Saeima. 

On Tuesday, 4 November, the new convocation of the Saeima elected its Presidium.