Some thoughts about my foreign policy intervention…

I would like to add some thoughts that I didn’t have time to include in my Saeima foreign policy speech. These concern Latvia’s accession to the eurozone and I invite my readers to dwell on them.

As Latvia now has become a member of the eurozone, she has now acquired a completely new level of influence in the international arena which Latvia never has had before in any previous configaration or time.

Firstly, the president of the Bank of Latvia Ilmārs Rimšēvics is now a member of the European Central Bank’s Council. His vote carries the same weight as that of the German Central Bank’s president. It is now common knowledge that it was exactly the president of the ECB Mario Draghi who saved the eurozone from financial collapse with his famous statement in 2012: “Within our mandate the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me it will be enough.”

Secondly, our minister of finance, by taking part in the EU Economics and Finance Council (Ecofin), now will be authorized to meet before the sitting of this council in the eurozone’s informal council meeting. This gives him a voice in two councils.

Thirdly, our prime minister represents Latvia now in the European Council at the level of heads of state as a prime minister from the eurozone.

I invite everybody to ask themselves: Has Latvia anytime in her history ever had such a voice in Europe and the world?