Chairman of the board of “Latvijas finiera” and professors discuss the causes of bureaucracy / Article

“I think that there are a lot of translations of our own society and we should be able to talk about those translations in a more reasoned way, with respect and empathy for industries, for people,” Uldis Biķis, chairman of the “Latvijas finiera” board, said in the discussion.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Fiscal Discipline Council, professor of the University of Latvia Inna Šteinbuka reminded that recommendations to reduce bureaucracy in Latvia can also be found in the latest recommendations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.

“Europe has its own bureaucracy, and we have our own bureaucracy. And everyone is fighting. As long as I have been working in the European Commission, I have been fighting against the bureaucracy all the time. We don’t fight anymore,” Steinbuk said ironically.

Gatis Krūmiņš, the leading researcher of the Vidzeme University, admits that one of the reasons for the bureaucratic requirements is that Latvia is a relatively poor country that cannot afford to finance much from its own funds.

“That’s why there are many officials in the ministries who manage these (European Union funds – ed.) projects. We have this type of project and that type of project. We write the regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers for all of this, all of this must be monitored, all of this must be reported. On our side, all these development projects that come to us, for example in higher education and science, are very connected. We have to write projects, there are reports again, three years pass again,” said Krūmiņš.

“In other countries, which are rich countries, they objectively do not have such a problem, because they themselves finance these things from their basic budget,” he said.

Uldis Biķis, chairman of the “Latvijas finiera” council, in response to Jānis Dombur’s retort that with his public reflections on the so-called green course, he has come to Eurosceptic positions on certain policies, objected, stressing that he believes that the goals of the green agreement are correct. The question is about execution and the speed with which the changes are planned to be achieved.

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