EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Latvia, Legislation

The ESM is an international organization located in Luxembourg, which was established in 2012 as a permanent firewall for the eurozone to safeguard and provide instant access to financial assistance programs for eurozone member states in financial difficulty. Greece has been receiving assistance from another source – the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), to which Latvia has made no payments, which means that Greece has not received any of Latvian taxpayers' money, as Aleksis Jarockis, head of the Finance Ministry's Communications Department, told LETA.

Latvia is represented on the ESM board by its finance minister.

After the EFSF ceases operations, its obligations will be transferred to the ESM. "The EFSF does not concern us as at that time we were not members of the eurozone. At the ESM, funds for new loans will be provided from the ESM capital," said Jarockis.