Analytics, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Legislation, Rating

The assessment lauds Latvia’s contribution to EU’s development and humanitarian aid programmes and its active policy of visa liberalisation for Eastern Partnership countries. For example, Latvia’s support for achieving a visa-free regime with Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova were taken into account.

Latvia has achieved an overall good result in the ECFR’s assessment. Unlike many other EU members, Latvia has not received any negative grades.

“Leaders” and “slackers” among EU member states

According to ECFR, the EU’s foreign policy in 2013 has, on the whole, been more successful compared to the previous three years, achieving notable progress in Kosovo and in negotiations with Iran. Still, relations with EU’s neighbouring regions had caused difficulties, the situation in Egypt and Syria in particular has worsened.

The European Foreign Policy Scorecard is an innovative project that provides a systematic annual assessment of Europe’s performance in dealing with the rest of the world. The scorecard assesses the performance of the 28 member states and the EU institutions on 66 policy areas arranged around six key themes: Multilateral Issues, Wider Europe, Middle East and North Africa, USA, Russia and China.