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Majority of Latvian ruling coalition not to support admitting more refugees

Xinhua, September 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

Two Latvian ruling coalition parties will not support admission of more refugees than agreed by the Latvian government earlier, Baltic News Service reported Thursday.

The parties are the Greens and Farmers Union (ZZS) and the nationalist conservative National Alliance which form the majority of the ruling coalition.

The Latvian government agreed earlier to voluntarily accept 250 refugees, but in line with the new plan of European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker, Latvia might have to admit additional 526 refugees.

"There is no support in the coalition to this issue," said ZZS parliament faction head August Brigmanis after the parliament meeting on Thursday, adding that neither ZZS, nor the National Alliance will support it.

Asked whether such stance might split up the coalition as this puts Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma from the third ruling party -- center-right Unity -- in an uneasy situation, Brigmanis said: "She is the prime minister, she has to go and explain the existing situation in the EU."

"Latvia cannot admit more refugees because we do not have the necessary infrastructure. The economic situation in the country is such that we cannot admit more refugees," he said, adding that Latvia is not a destination refugees want.

National Alliance's faction head and co-chairman Raivis Dzintars confirmed that the National Alliance will not agree on the admission of more refugees.

Dzintars criticized Juncker's proposal, saying that it threatens EU stability and unity. "If one mistake leads to a problem, it is insane to make the same mistake again," he said.

Juncker in his state of the union address to the European Parliament proposed that EU member states accept 160,000 refugees via a mandatory refugee quota.

Latvian officials have repeatedly said that they will not support mandatory refugee quotas. Endit