The 20th anniversary of joining the EU is celebrated with a solemn ceremony in the Riga Palace / Article

The ceremony was attended by the President Edgars Rinkēvičs, Speaker of the Saeima Daiga Mieriņa (Greens and Farmers’ Union), Prime Minister Evika Siliņa (“New Unity”), Minister of Foreign Affairs Baiba Braže and President of the Supreme Court Aigars Strupišs.

Development has been forward

With today’s view, we can all appreciate how important Latvia’s entry into the EU was for us, besides, we have not heard loud voices saying: “No, it was a mistake”, – said the Speaker of the Saeima in an interview on Latvijas Radio program “Labrīt” after the ceremony.

She pointed out that with today’s point of view, we value membership in the EU, because there are still a number of countries at the door of Europe that want to enter there. “They want to enter, because together we have strength and together we can do more,” said Mieriņa.

Speaking about the benefits of EU membership, Mieriņa noted: “No matter how much they say that we have failures in one area or another, we can still see that development has always been forward. Maybe it was a little slower at one time, but we have developed.”

She also pointed out the importance of freedom of speech in a democracy. “We know quite a lot of stories from our history when restricting freedom of speech and restricting people’s freedom of expression has led to tragic consequences, we also see this today from countries that do not follow the democratic path and that try to restrict people’s free speech and expression,” she said, emphasizing , that this value is very fragile.

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