Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Legislation, Society

Mamikins told LETA that they had collected over 20,000 signatures under the petition, and there were residents of Belgium, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, the United States, Canada, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh among the signatories of the petition.

"Non-citizens actively contacted their MEPs to find out how to sign the petition," Toom was quoted by spokespeople as saying.

The petition seeks the rights for Estonia's non-citizens to become members of political parties and to vote in the European Parliament election and, in case of Latvia's non-citizens, the right to vote in the local and European Parliament elections. The petition says that there were 82,341 non-citizens in Estonia and 252,017 non-citizens in Latvia at the beginning of 2016.

"These are huge numbers, considering that total population is around 2 million in Latvia and about 1.3 million in Estonia. Those people are not allowed to vote in the European Parliament election, although they are counted in when the number of seats [due to Latvia and Estonia in the European Parliament] is determined,” Mamikins said.

Zdanoka said she was optimistic about the initiative because she had received strong support from colleagues in Brussels. She pointed out that this was the fourth petition about the situation of non-citizens in Estonia and Latvia that had been submitted to the European Parliament since the accession of both countries to the EU.

After the restoration of independence in the early 1990s, the Baltic States were left with huge number of non-citizens – Russian-speakers who had moved here during the long years of Soviet occupation.

The signatures were collected from April 9 in Estonia and April 14 in Latvia.