EU – Baltic States, Internet, Latvia, Legislation, Society, Technology

The recent referendum on the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU has apparently rekindled interest in a similar initiative that was published at the manabalss.lv public initiatives portal four years ago.

To date, the initiative has been signed by 2,268 people, including about 300 signatures which have been added in the last five days, according to the portal’s information.

The initiative was launched in March 2012 to collect enough signatures to require the Latvian parliament to consider organization of a referendum about Latvia's possible withdrawal from the EU. The minimum threshold to submit any initiatives to the parliament as a collective legislative initiative is 10,000.

The author of the initiative is Peteris Martinsons, who says that upon its accession to the EU, Latvia lost some of its sovereignty but got in return only various restrictions. He also listed a number of other arguments in favor of Latvia’s withdrawal from the EU.

Even if majority of Latvians voted against withdrawal from the EU in the referendum, it would be a signal to large EU member states that they should pay more attention to the position of smaller countries like Latvia, Martinsons said.