On 6th of July, 2011 the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) with the support of Freedom and Solidarity Foundation (FSF) held the discussion forum „Facing the demographical catastrophe – actions and solutions”. Around 70 participants from various non-governmental organizations, universities and government institutions gathered at the venue – Free Trade Unions house in Riga. Several hundred people watched the discussion on-line on leading Latvian news website delfi.lv.

The forum was opened by introductory speeches of hosts. Deputy Chairman of the Board of FSF Mr Ervins Labanovskis presented a short video fragment from theater play „Squeaking Silence” – near perfect portrayal of the essence of demographic problems in Latvia, as well as general attitudes of people. Mr Labanovskis stressed that such problems make people feel unsafe, many think that “if my nation is dying out, I perish, too”. By reminding about successful cases in smaller welfare states than Latvia, he encouraged an “out of the box” discussion, to overcome taboo of immigration topic and to speak also about state policies on demographic improvement.

Mr Matthieu Meaulle, Economic Advisor of FEPS, supported the first speaker and expressed his confidence about successful future of Latvian demographic change. Despite the fact that Latvian case indeed seems catastrophic, it is necessary to examine the situation and understand, what’s exactly happening. Latvia, as Mr Meaulle said, is not the only state in EU with such problems. His recent visits to Latvia helped him to understand better the situation in the country and he suggested to look for the cause of demographic problems also in great inequality and state debt. 24 out of 27 EU member states have improved the demographic situation in recent years and for Latvia to succeed it needs completely different approach to economics. Better macro economic plan, instead of just focusing on financial sector, is necessary to help different social groups, and immigration is also among the solutions. Mr Meaulle finished his speech by calling for fruitful discussion, avoiding pessimism and concentrating on searching for real and positive solutions.

Demographer Mr Ilmars Mezs opened the session of expert reports. He made it clear that Latvia would not face mass immigration in the following 3 to 5 years, but this period would be decisive for Latvians in the long run – it should show if immigration would play central role in next ten to twenty years. Mr Mezs demonstrated birth rate statistics in EU member states and Latvia had absolutely worst results in EU. The more prosperous the state, the more resources it can allocate for support of young families and children (France, Scandinavia being best examples). He contrasted “conscientious Europe” with “unconscientious Europe” that sacrifices family support policies in their run for better macro economic performance. Such approach makes immigration inevitable in ten to twenty years. According to his own population forecast up to year 2150, based on birth rate data (excluding emigration) of recent years, the development trend in Latvia is clearly negative. In present Latvian situation even the birth of first child makes parents to seriously evaluate financial responsibility, which coincides with the period of time when Latvia has the most females in reproductive age. It is highly probable that expected great population decline in the following years will foster immigration, which won’t even be enforced by EU bureaucrats. It will be fuelled by Latvian employers who will have to seek for workers outside Latvia to support growth. Ageing of population and shortage of local people in working age is already a big problem. According to Mr Mezs, in Estonia which also had similar problems, they came up with long-term social policy that already provides fruitful results by the fact that the number of newly born children exceeds mortality rate. Unfortunately, politicians in Latvia don’t see beyond 4-year elections terms and choose to build dubious structures, some of which cost two times more than Estonian social support policy for young families. And as most of the voters are senior citizens, they attract most attention from politicians. Mr Mezs finished his rather pessimistic presentation by saying that return of Latvian emigrants who’ve lived abroad for more than 3 to 5 years is unlikely and to see the opposite we need a miracle. To overcome the effects of plague the nation needs high birth rate, and Latvia currently lacks even that.

Mr Veiko Spolitis, lecturer of Riga Stradins University, presented report about paradigm shift in state’s approach to dealing with demographic problems. In Latvia de iure it happened in 2004, when it joined EU, and discussion was renewed in 2010, when pensions issue came into spotlight (also in other EU member states). For more than 50 years demographers were more focused on overpopulation of our planet. Which is not the case for Latvia. In his past publications Mr Spolitis proposed two options for Latvian state – either Latvian women agree to become “incubators” or we should open our state for immigration, though controlled, taking example from Scandinavian countries. Mr Spolitis noted that it would be incorrect to think that we’re alone – even if Latvia is part of EU, it still has commitments to UN, WTO, WHO and other international organizations. However, negative Soviet immigration experience shouldn’t be taken lightly. In terms of global discussion on immigration, there are different opinions about role of the nation and such short-term challenges as environment protection, entropy of global ecosystem, transformation of international relations. For instance, almost 15 million fugitives (official number) are currently seeking for safer, more stable and prosperous place to live, thus it is not just a problem of South. Thanks to advances in technologies, education and introduction of welfare systems, Nothern societies have transformed themselves. From their perspective modern nation state is not just respecting general human rights, but also specific rights of different minorities. Mr Spolitis stressed that as demographic and immigration issues shouldn’t be separated, Latvia, being an EU member state, has to accept European migration policy. Of course, integration of immigrants remains an important issue, but since accession to the EU Latvia cannot treat it just from ethnic point of view. According to Mr Spolitis, Latvian identity depends only on Latvians themselves – as long as they want to keep it, it will last. Instead of being too occupied by it, they should make better use of mechanisms available for Latvia as EU member state to tackle existing demographic problems.

The expert opinions’ session was continued by presentation of social anthropologist Mr Klavs Sedlenieks, who shared his vision on Latvian culture and demographics from social anthropologic point of view. He started by acknowledging that current Latvian problems is nothing unique, thus one shouldn’t be looking for causes of such problems in specific Latvian culture. Many polls show that Latvians highly value children and family, but reproduction is not among priorities. For people who are aware of “side effects” of sexually active life need motivation for giving birth to children, which is also seen as very expensive investment that requires not just financial means, but also attention and care. Mr Sedlenieks noted the link between “costs of having a child” and “desire to have a child” – the more the former, the less the latter. The less children one has, the more attention they require – the costs of upbringing increase. However, having children is both an emotional gain and a sign of status, which Latvians value as important. Despite the fact that children mean extra costs and from this point of view cannot be seen as economically rational investment for a person, having at least one child is treated as important feature of grown-up man. Having children also impact long-term perspectives – reliability of partner, probability and ease of divorce, alimony (research shows that in countries, where alimony payments are bigger, birth rates are lower). Mr Sedlenieks said that in Latvia men play big role in decisions for not having children. Due to institutional and many other reasons men are put aside from involvement in the life of a child, and that is why it is absolutely incorrect to talk only about women, if birth rate issues are being discussed. A sense of uncertainty about oneself and children is not only a feature of women. In the last part of his presentation Mr Sedlenieks suggested some solutions and reminded that divorce and “free families” is reality that has to be accepted, it won’t disappear. At the same time the complexity in relationship between children and biological and real parents has also increased. Not the least important factor is also education – the higher it is, the less children such parents have. Women won’t return to the status of housewives – they will want to remain part of labour market. Thus, state policy should take care of all such situations: more child care institutions should be established, paternity leave should be accepted, special programmes for men should be introduced – little boys should be prepared for the role of father already at school, protection against mothers aggressively refusing access to children should be implemented, as well as there should be support for people that despite of previous relations and having children from them, wish to establish new families and give birth to children.

Next report was presented together by Ms Inga Smate, Director of Public Health Department of the Ministry of Health, and her colleague Ms Livija Liepina, Director of Children and Family Policy Department of the Ministry of Welfare.

Ms Inga Smate stated that in Latvia there is a difference between having values and working on them to become reality. Latvian people need to be healthy, to make healthy children, who should become healthy voters voting for representatives in government. Instead, Latvian society feels ill, it wishes for state to give values and not to work on them itself. Quantity is important, but quality shouldn’t be sacrificed – children should be healthy. Each sick pregnant woman and sick baby is a burden for state budget. Men, in this regard, is the saddest example – they care less about their health and are more keen to submit to bad habits, and in result their life expectation is shorter. High perinatal mortality is another painful issue in Latvia – it is caused by relatively high alcohol consumption and smoking of parents. According to Ms Smate, partly it could be compensated by increasing budget for psychotherapy consultations for young women to avoid abortions and give birth to child. Unfortunately, mortality rate of children of 1-14 years age is also high; even more – mortality is just the tip of the iceberg, because the number of those who have survived the injuries and have become disabled, is even higher. Public health policy has been developed in order to deal with such problems. Ministry of Health sees its mission in decreasing the mortality of healthy children, improving the treatment of sick children and promoting healthy lifestyle among parents.

For her part, Ms Livija Liepina reflected on the current goals of the state – if only EU and NATO are our priorities? As a society we should understand, where we’re going, why we’re living here and why we don’t care about our safety. Probably, we should state another goal – to overtake Estonia. Ms Liepina called for people to be honest to themselves and others – if family and marriage are values, then we have to follow that path. To respond to the call of society and politicians state family policy was prepared and accepted by government in February of 2011. Despite the fact that there was no visible involvement and interest from politicians, the aim of the document is to strengthen creation of families, stability, welfare, to promote the idea of having children, as well as to strengthen marriage institution and its value in society. Unfortunately, there can be no new and financially significant proposals – all existing events should be implemented in the framework of existing budget until 2014. However, the work on Action Plan is on-going and there is space for new ideas and proposal. Mr Liepina expressed hope that in the light of upcoming elections more politicians would become active and start thinking about long-term policies. She reminded about a link between non-stable politics, lack of goals and society, which feels unsafe and de-motivated to have more children or create new families.

The last report of the first session of the forum was presented by Ms Dace Akule, European Policy Advisor of “Providus”. She focused on proposals for immigration policy, which is one of the solutions for demographic problems in Latvia. Already in the introductory part of her report she stressed that she would like to talk about immigration as challenge – not from perspective if Latvia needs it or not, but why it is so hard for Latvian society to think about it as solution. The main causes for immigration often is family union, employment, education abroad. For Latvia the main immigration routes are from ex-Soviet Union countries – people choose Latvia because of close proximity and similar cultural roots, they can use Russian here and they can earn relatively more money. Construction, manufacturing, transport and logistics, hospitality, catering and trade industries are of interest for them. Due to economic crisis the demand for their services has decreased, and Latvia is not the most welcome place for immigrants, because it lacks harmonized integration policy. The language barrier is also important: after 5 years of residence a person can obtain a permanent residence permit or even citizenship, for which the state language and history exam should be passed. But as the state is not supporting any language courses, many immigrant choose to stick to Russian; only one out of seven persons learn Latvian. D. Akule presented research data, according to which majority of Latvian people treat immigrants as threat for local jobs, however, part of them don’t see a reason for immigrants to come to Latvia. In general, attitude of Latvian society towards immigrants is not positive – Latvian people understand emigrants, but not immigrants. 70% of population does not support budget allocation for integration of immigrants. As institutional responsibility for immigrants is divided, there is still no sustainable and targeted immigration policy in place. Ms Akule stressed that Latvians have a choice – half-empty Latvia with just several centers, if they won’t start thinking about immigration policy already now. They should also remember that there is on-going competition for immigrants among other EU member states and many states in the other parts of the world.

As usual, the second part of the forum was prepared for discussion of politicians from different political parties, as well as representatives from Free Trade Unions and Latvian Employers Confederation. In his opening speech moderator of discussion Mr Ansis Dobelis, Member of the Board of FSF, asked participants to think of the current demographic situation and reflect on the fact, why such discussion is happening so late. At the same time he called for politicians to share their vision and propose solutions to this problem.

Representative of the alliance of parties “Unity”, Member of Parliament Mr Atis Lejins said that Latvia is not alone and that many other states in EU, including our neighbours Estonia and Lithuania, are facing such problems. In his opinion, Latvia should follow Estonian example and solve many of issues by itself. One of solutions is to introduce double citizenship in order for emigrants to keep the link with Latvia and to return. State family support policies also should be strengthened, especially in terms of tax reliefs, availability of kindergartens and other important factors, which could be financed by EU funds, too.

Representative of the alliance of parties “For Fine Latvia”, Member of Parliament Mr Edgars Zalans agreed that demography is also European problem, but Latvian case is the most extreme. Despite some improvements after accession to the EU, the drop of birth rate increased due to economic crisis. According to him, Latvia has experienced two emigration waves – first, there were people who ran after welfare and second, there are people who seek for better place to survive. He noted that there is a connection between people seeing good future prospects and the rise of birth rate.

Member of Parliament Ms Dace Reinika of the Union of Farmers and Greens admitted that demographic problems appeared at the same moment when families lost stability necessary for giving birth to and upbringing of children. Ms Reinika was convinced that financial cuts accepted during economic crisis most directly affected birth rate.

In his turn, Member of Parliament Mr Igors Pimenovs, representative of “Concord Center”, made it plain clear that risen demographic problem is the result of twenty years of state’s policy – the involvement of state in dealing with social issues has diminished drastically. World economic crisis has worsened the situation, in which lack of jobs forced exodus of young and capable Latvians out of state. Unemployment, with no doubt, is the main reason that lessens motivation to have children. Politician assured that the only solution is encoded in simple formula: if there’s job, there are children.

Mr Peteris Leiskalns represented an opinion of Latvian Employers Confederation. He noted that looking at the problem from employers’ point of view, it is already evident that Latvia has problems with conformity of qualification of young people to the needs of labour market. He admitted that immigration policy should become priority already in nearest future, because the policy of state towards families with children has been utterly unfavourable.

Discussion was continued by Head of Free Trade Unions, Mr Peteris Krigers, who suggested rejecting romanticism and patriotism prism, through which demographic issues are usually observed in Latvia. The solution for problems shouldn’t be left to empty talk or political slogans before elections, because people are more interested in material and financial aspects of living. The state should come up with policies which make people interested to give birth to children. Instead, the state declared priorities, but in reality it did exactly the opposite, making the problems even worse. He agreed that availability of decent jobs is also important factor, especially for those who chose to stay or plan to return. Mr Krigers strictly noted that financing for family support should be allocated even in the light of current (bad) state of budget and planned cuts – it is a question of our survival.

Participants of discussion also addressed several immigration issues, creation of better state regulative policy, giving rights to parents to vote for their under-age children and other demography related problems. Audience was also actively involved in the process. In conclusion most of participants agreed that solution for demography problem should be complex, taking into account improvement of birth rate, reduction of mortality, as well as limiting of emigration and promoting controlled immigration. Even if no consensus on the level of priority of each of these proposals was reached, participants agreed that all of them should be implemented simultaneously. Unfortunately, currently clear vision on how it should be done is lacking.

Discussion forum was held by Foundation for European Progressive Studies in cooperation with Freedom and Solidarity Foundation.