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Greens/Farmers to continue cooperation with Lembergs' party For Latvia and Ventspils

BC, Riga, 08.01.2020.Print version
The Union of Greens and Farmers will continue cooperation with the regional party For Latvia and Ventspils whose leader is Ventspils mayor Aivars Lembergs, informed LETA/BNS.

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The board and Saeima group of Greens/Farmers took the decision after meeting with Lembergs on Wednesday. 


Greens/Farmers chairman Edgars Tavars said that in today's joint meeting of the Greens/Farmers board and Saeima group nobody proposed any changes in cooperation between Greens/Farmers and For Latvia and Ventspils. 


Lembers also indicated that For Latvia and Ventspils believes that cooperation with Greens/Farmers must continue.


Asked why he complained to the Latvian Constitutional Court  about US sanctions against him, Lembergs said that his complaint concerned the application of the sanctions, as his rights to receive information and explain his position, as well as the rights to defense and appeal had been violated. 


Lembergs maintained that sanctions against him could only be applied if they were ordered by Latvian authorities. 


The Ventspils mayor also said that his bank had refused to release money so he can pay his lawyer. Lembergs has therefore concluded that the approximately EUR 60,000 in his bank account have been arrested, although he has not been presented with a document warranting the asset freeze. 


Commenting on the decision of the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control to impose sanctions against him, Lembergs said that if such a decision has indeed been taken it can only be valid in US territory. The politician went on to say that his identity was not properly indicated in the US authorities' statement on the sanctions, so he could not be sure it concerned him in the first place. He said he was going to ask the US authorities to specify if he was the person sanctioned by OFAC. 


Lembergs claimed he has been denied the rights to defense guaranteed by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights .


Asked about the recent calls by MP Dana Reizniece-Ozola (Greens/Farmers) for Lembergs to leave politics, Armands Krauze, a board member of Greens/Farmers and chairman of the Latvian Farmers' Union, said that there are various opinions represented in the party. 


Asked if the situation with Lembergs might prevent Greens/Farmers from receiving the public funding they are entitled to as a party represented in Saeima, Tavars said that the party will take a separate decision on this issue. 


As reported, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) on December 9 imposed sanctions on a number of natural and legal persons in Europe, Asia and Latin America, including on Lembergs, based on the so-called Magnitsky Act. 






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