Translated with DeepL.com
On 2 February, the Minister of the Economy, Viktors Valainis, met with the Executive Vice President of the European Commission (EC), Valdis Dombrovskis, to discuss issues related to promoting economic growth in Latvia and the European Union in the current difficult geopolitical environment. Both sides agreed on the need to find solutions for the successful completion of the programmes of the previous EU programming period and the timely implementation of the programmes of the current period.
The Minister for Economic Affairs asked the EC representative whether it would be possible to extend the completion of the EU's Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRM) support programmes beyond the currently foreseen 1 August 2026.
The EC Vice-President replied that this would require a change in EU legislation and, in the case of ANM funding, would require a joint decision by all EU Member States, which is a politically difficult solution to achieve.
The parties discussed issues relating to Latvia's long-term economic growth, agreeing that the key factors for this are increasing business productivity and innovation, access to finance, workforce resources, and removing unnecessary administrative barriers, including in the implementation of EU fund programmes.
The EC Vice-President welcomed the work and initiatives of the EM in these areas, in particular in eliminating red tape, promoting the labour market and human capital development, with the Ministry taking a key driving role in these areas.
V. Dombrovskis asked about access to finance for small businesses in Latvia, where V. Valainis replied that this was indeed a big problem - according to Swedbank's research, 70% of small businesses are refused bank loans. However, the government has seriously addressed this problem and already now small businesses have access to a very favourable programme of small loans up to EUR 50 000 from the financial institution "Altum" to start or expand their business.
