Baltic States – CIS, Education and Science, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Legislation

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The Latvian Foreign Ministry’s State Secretary, Andrejs Pildegovics, and the Secretary-General of the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs of Austria, Michael Linhart, at the meeting in Riga on Thursday welcomed the agreement about further work of the Austrian embassy in Latvia.

In June 2015, Austria announced its plan to close several embassies in Europe, including Latvia, in order to optimize its network of embassies.

The Latvian Foreign Ministry said in a press release that Pildegovics and Linhart had discussed the ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation and important matters on the EU agenda. They exchanged opinions about possible solutions to the migration crisis, the EU-Russia relations, the EU enlargement and Eastern Partnership, including Austria’s possible participation in the European law and economics program that the Riga Graduate School of Law offers to students from the Eastern Partnership countries, Central Asia and Western Balkans.

M. Linhart congratulated Latvia on the invitation to accede to the OECD and outlined Austria’s plans for its OSCE Chairmanship in 2017.

As part of his visit, Secretary General Linhart also met with the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Saeima (the Latvian Parliament) and delivered remarks at an event to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Department of Austrian and Swiss Literature at the Academic Library of the University of Latvia.