Russians permanently residing in Latvia will be given a grace period to pass the Latvian language exam. In particular, they will have two more years to do so, Interior Minister Maris Kucinskis said, Bloomberg reports.
The decision was made after about 10,000 people were threatened with expulsion from Latvia for failing to fulfill the language requirement. The changes to the deferral will be enshrined in law and will affect those Russians who did not pass the exam by September 1 to become permanent residents of the EU. The amendments still have to be approved by the parliament.
According to the Interior Minister, the measures requiring Russian residents to know Latvian were a "political decision" made on the eve of the elections, and now the authorities are "correcting the mistakes made a year ago."
According to the current legislation, the automatic permanent residence status of former (non)Latvian citizens who obtained Russian citizenship after 2003 will be revoked on September 2, 2023. In order to obtain a new EU permanent resident status in Latvia, a number of documents need to be submitted to the Citizenship and Migration Board (CMS), including a certificate of proficiency in the state language at A2 or higher. According to the DGMM, there are 25,316 such Russians in the country, out of a population of 1.9 million.
Kucinskis said that 752 people have already applied for a temporary residence permit, realizing that they will not pass the exam. The minister emphasized that no one would be expelled for the time being: this would create risks of provocations and court cases. Each case of exam failure will be considered individually.
Earlier, the chairman of the Saeima Commission on Citizenship, Migration and Cohesion, Ingmar Lidaka, said that Latvia would expel those Russians who "did not show any desire" to either pass the language exam or obtain a temporary residence permit. According to his forecasts, this should affect 6,000 people: they will have three months to "leave without haste." According to the current law, deportations are to begin on December 2.
Background. As a reminder, Latvia has joined the G7 joint declaration of support for Ukraine.