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Latvian gov't adopts plan to receive refugees

Xinhua, November 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

Latvian ministers at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday adopted an action plan for the admission of several hundred refugees soon to be relocated to Latvia from other EU member states.

During a debate on the action plan drawn up by the Interior Ministry, the ministers mostly focused on the benefits and language requirements for the refugees.

The estimated costs of the refugees' resettlement in Latvia have been cut by half a million euros, from 15.45 million euros (16.92 million U.S. dollars) to 14.9 million euros. The EU is expected to provide 6.5 million euros of that amount, while 8.4 million euros will have to be provided for by the Latvian government's budget.

The bulk of this financing has been put forward by the Interior Ministry, which is planning a major overhaul and expansion of an asylum center in Mucenieki, outside Riga.

Interior Ministry state secretary Ilze Petersone-Godmane, who heads a working group tasked with planning the admission of refugees, said some education, health care and accommodation costs related to the refugees' admission could still change.

She told reporters ahead of the government meeting that asylum seekers, most probably citizens of Syria, Eritrea and Iraq, would start arriving as soon as Latvia announced it was ready to receive them.

Latvia agreed to take in 531 of some 120,000 asylum seekers that arrived in Greece and Italy. It is expected that the first migrants might be relocated to Latvia in the winter. Endit