Re: Naturalisation in Latvia?
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 97 22:04:57 -0500
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Naturalisation in Latvia?
From: MINELRES moderator \ Internet: ([email protected])
Naturalisation in Latvia?
[email protected] (Andre Liebich) writes:
> Could someone explain to me the discrepancy in naturalisation figures for
> Latvia since the introduction of the 1994 citizenship law?
Hopefully, my colleagues from Latvia closely involved in the field will add
more details. So far I can quote some basic figures.
> The Osce Commissioner for Minorities estimates that 4% of the 55.000
eligible
> people (2.200) have been naturalised. Apparently, the Latvian
naturalisation
> bureau puts this figure at 10% of the 124.000 people eligible (12.400).
The
> Latvian committee on human rights whose 1996 report MINELRES transmitted
puts
> this figure at 3.000 people out of 170.000 eligible (1,7%). Elsewhere,
however
Apparently, these figures pertain to different dates. In particular, the
Latvian HR Committee mentions figures as of end of 1996, as far as I
understand. Besides, the Naturalization Board used to mention both number of
submitted applications and number of persons who have passed the entire
procedure and received citizenship, and sometimes the two indicators used to
be confused.
> I have read that there have been 125.000 naturalisations in Latvia and
that the
> % of non-citizens has fallen from 34% to 28%
This is definitely wrong. Do you remember where these figures were mentioned
?
> All this is quite bewildering and self-contradictory. Can you help me?
Official data are the following.
31 January 1996 (i.e. within one year of naturalization) - a bit over than 1
,000 persons were naturalized ("Diena", 31.01.96)
31 March 1996 - 1,478 (information sheet of the Latvian Naturalization Board
of 12/04/1996)
31 July 1996 - 2,459 (information sheet of the Latvian Naturalization Board
of 13/08/1996)
31 January 1997 - 4,161 (information sheet of the Latvian Naturalization
Board of 10/02/1997)
March 1997 - 4.644 (information of the Latvian Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
4/04/1997)
Sorry, I don't have more recent data at hand at the moment. Anyway, the
naturalization tempo definitely didn't speed up fpr the last months. Just
the opposite, after the President Ulmanis urged the government to lower the
naturalization fee (currently 30 lats - about 60 $ US), practically no
applications are being submitted, apparently, everybody waits till the
procedure becomes less expencive :-)
The MFA information mentioned above contains also numbers of noncitizens
eligible for naturalization:
in 1995 - appr. 60,000 persons (those who have the right to the preferential
treatment, i,e, spouses of citizens who have lived more than 10 years in
marriage, persons who were permanent residents of Latvia before August 1914
and their descendants, and some other categories);
in 1996 - 33,000 persons (Latvia-born young people in age from 16 to 20
years);
in 1997 - 31,000 persons (Latvia-born people younger than 25).
These figures completely match the number mentioned by E.Aldermane, director
of the Naturalization Board in her interview to "SM" newspaper, 9/06/1997 -
124,000 persons eligible for naturalization at that moment. Maybe 125,000
naturalizations you mentioned are confused with this figure?
Corresponding per cents can be calculated from these data.
Yours,
Boris
--
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