EU – Baltic States, Forum, Latvia, Legislation

He said that presiding countries usually organize between 150 to 300 events during their EU presidencies.

''The Coordination Committee of the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union agreed today to organize no more than 200 events. The Secretariat of the Latvian Presidency has been given the task of working together with ministries and other state institutions to decide on these events,'' said Rinkevics, adding that the number of organized events was decided on taking into account the available financing for Latvia's EU presidency.

At the moment, several of the main events which will be organized during Latvia's presidency are known, including the Eastern Partnership Summit in May 2015. Another event will be the Europe-Asia meeting of education ministers. At the same time, Latvia plans to ask the European Commission to organize the Digital Assembly in Latvia. Rinkevics said that the event is usually organized in Brussels, however, it is important for it to take place in Latvia, as Latvia has very good achievements in this sector, and in separate areas in ahead of Europe, like, for example, Internet speed. ''We would like Europe to follow us, instead of us following Europe,'' Rinkevics said, adding that sometime the rest of Europe is ''pulling Latvia down'' in digital development.

Latvia will takeover the EU presidency for a period of six months from January 2015.