Million lats for each day of economic sanctions against Belarus

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The MPs wrote the letter against sanctions just in case, as nobody knows what these sanctions will be like. However, they are convinced in the Latvian Confederation of Employers that any action will affect the neighbours:

"Even if sanctions are applied to individual Belarusian businessmen and enterprises, like freezing their assets ... And the Belarusian business has a connection with the Latvian business ... Even such indirect measures will have a potentially negative impact on our economy."

In order to agree to implementation of the economic sanctions, Latvia demands...compensation from the EU. In the scope of at least billion euros! Chairman of the board of the Society for Promoting the Latvian-Belarusian Economic Relations Alfred Čepānis has said this.

Riga City Council member Maxim Talsty calls another sum - one million lats (almost $ 2 million). However, this is per day!

Maxim Talsty: "A billion - I don't know who said that. The sum has been rounded, I should say, to show their importance and honour. However, a million per day is an absolutely adequate sum".

He adds that the flow of tourists and trade have been considerably increased between Belarus and Latvia for the recent year.

Maxim Talsty: "... a good relationship with our ports, many cargos are reloaded there. Naturally, this means workplaces which will be lost. We absolutely dislike this. We are going to present the losses that we will have in case the EU imposes economic sanctions, to the European Union. According to my calculations, we will lose about one million lats daily! This is a huge amount of money for our country! Therefore, if the EU wants to impose these sanctions, let it then deal with our losses and compensate them to us! "

Let us remind you, recently the Latvian MPs have sent an open letter to PM Valdis Dombrovskis and Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs who will take part in the session of the Council of the EU on March 23.

"We are not speaking of just Latvia's losses...In any case, economic sanctions should not be used as a method for regulation of political issues. I am convinced of this!" — head of the parliamentary group Alena Lazarava has said in an interview to Euroradio.

According to Alena Lazarava, deputies of almost all parliamentary parties stand against sanctions. At the same time, they do not know what kind of sanctions are being prepared! They have written the letter just in case...

Alena Lazarava: "I cannot give an estimation on the effect which the economic sanctions may bring as I don't know in which format they will be introduced. The only thing I can state is that Latvia and Belarus have close economic connections".

The commodity turnover between Latvia and Belarus in 2011 was about 4% of Latvia's total commodity turnover. Belarus is the 12th most important partner in the sphere of Latvian export and the 6th - in the sphere of Latvian import. It ships 90% of diesel fuel to Latvia.

Let us remind you, the session of the Council of the EU will take place on March 23. Its participants may expand the sanctions against the Belarusian authorities if political prisoners are not released. Alongside with that, there are discussions about imposing targeted sanctions on some citizens, not about large-scale economic restrictions.