EU – Baltic States, History, Latvia

The amendments were supported by 63 lawmakers from all parliament factions, there were no votes against and no abstentions. Some Harmony lawmakers, Aivars Meija from the Harmony faction and Gunars Kutris from the faction of the Union of Greens and Farmers, as well as Arvids Platpers from the Latvian Alliance of Regions, Inguna Ribena (National Alliance) and Andris Silins (Greens/Farmers) did not participate in the vote.

The parliament will have to vote on the amendments in the third reading which will take place before the upcoming parliament elections on October 6, 2018, and the president still has to promulgate the amendments.

The published documents will include phone catalogues, listing KGB employees, and card index, listing outside collaborators. The information will be published in the internet website of the Latvian National Archives.

Starting from May 1, 2019, also other KGB documents will be published.

About three weeks will be needed to digitalize about 10,000 cards that will be published this year. Four months will be needed to develop a system that will allow digital search in the documents.

The possibility of releasing information from KGB files that were left behind in Latvia after the Baltic state restored its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990 has been discussed in Latvia at regular intervals during the past years with some arguing that the former KGB agents should be exposed and others questioning the authenticity of the documents and information contained in them.