Four municipalities have not developed action plans in the event of a military threat / Article

The appendix to the civil defense plan in the event of a military threat had to be developed by the beginning of this year, the need and deadline for the plan was determined by the law and the regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers in the fall of 2022.

However, there are still four municipalities for which this addition to the plan has not been developed. It has not yet been revealed which municipalities they are.

About half a month ago, there were eight such municipalities.

Dāvids Valters, legal adviser of the Latvian Association of Local Governments, explained that the problem is that creating the necessary documents for the Civil Defense Plan is closely related to access to state secrets, because not only those representatives of the local government who have permission work on the development of this plan or annex to a state secret, but also those who do not have one.

True, the Saeima subcommittee came to the conclusion at the meeting that this is not a problem and that municipalities can do it.

As, for example, the deputy head of the State Fire and Rescue Service, Ivars Nakurts, explained – if the head of the municipality, the executive director or someone else has permission for limited information, then after reading the relevant documents, they can give a specific task to their colleagues, when they do not even know that they are working with information , which are limited tolerances.

As the Chairman of the Saeima’s Comprehensive National Defense Subcommittee, non-partisan MP Igors Rajevs, emphasized, municipalities that have not yet developed the necessary documents are probably trying to find excuses.

So – there are no problems, and local governments have all the permissions and, therefore, opportunities to develop an appendix to Civil Defense Plans. The subcommittee could not explain why four municipalities have not done it yet. And this is partly because none of the representatives of Latvian local governments attended the subcommittee session.

CONTEXT:

By January 1, 2024, all municipalities had to include a section on action in the event of a military invasion or war in their civil defense plan. Most municipalities, together with representatives of the National Armed Forces (NBS), have already developed a comprehensive plan that includes issues such as national threats, public disorder, acts of terrorism or military invasions and war.