President: Refugee departures were to be expected

Take note – story published 7 years ago

Refugees leaving Latvia and moving to Germany is not a surprise and was expected as many politicians previously predicted that refugees will be dissatisfied with life in Latvia and leave.

That's what Latvia's President Raimonds Vējonis told LTV's Rīta Panorāma in a Monday interview.

"Is that really anything new?" the president said. "Because I think last summer when we started discussing Latvia's involvement into solving the refugee and asylum seeker problem, many politicians voiced an opinion that most likely some [of them] will be leaving Latvia."

Furthermore, he said that Latvia cannot give some refugees what they want.

"We can offer mainly peace and stability, and it has been repeatedly stressed that we're not ready to provide economic benefits to those who seek material goods."

Vējonis also said that anti-immigrant and anti-refugee radicals are gaining more and more foothold in the EU.

"We have to do our homework so that such radicalization doesn't take place," he said, mentioning conflict solving in war-torn countries; strengthening EU borders; and improving ties with EU's neighboring countries as things that have to be continued.

Previously LTV's Aizliegtais paņēmiens discovered that, of the 23 refugees that Latvia had admitted under the EU relocation scheme and legally recognized as refugees, 21 had left for Germany.

Latvia has admitted 69 asylum seekers under the EU refugee relocation scheme and has committed to take in a total of 531 asylum seekers in two years.

Most of them will be relocated from EU member states Greece and Italy, but 50 people must be relocated from third countries.

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