On Friday 14 December, the Prime Minister Māris Kučinskis continued the work of the European Council and attended the Euro Summit in Brussels.
During the meeting of the European Council, the European Union (EU) heads of state and government discussed the issues related to the Single Market and disinformation. Latvia welcomes the European Commission’s communication on the Single Market and encourages continuing the analysis of current challenges, especially in the field of cross-border services.
“The Single Market is one of the cornerstones of the EU. A constructive discussion on this issue is important for next year in order to eliminate any barriers and to agree on further integration and future development of the Single Market. I think that the future vision of the Single Market should be based on meeting the needs of the users – people and entrepreneurs.”
In relation to the issue of preventing disinformation, M. Kučinskis was pleased that, in the context of the European Parliament elections, the necessary steps have been taken in order to prepare for external malicious intervention – it is now important to ensure shared monitoring and analysis of the situation. The Prime Minister points out that it is necessary to achieve greater transparency and accountability from the online platforms. They can do more to protect private data, to decrease spread of disinformation and to eliminate illegal content on the Internet. It was noted that the European Council should regularly go back to the issue of disinformation, in order to evaluate the progress of implementation of adopted documents and decisions and, if necessary, to assign new tasks.
The euro area budget was discussed during the Euro Summit in Brussels. M. Kučinskis notes that the euro area budget cannot be shaped at the expense of other policies, including the cohesion policy and the reduction of support funding for the common agricultural policy. The euro area budget rules should be designed in such a way that all euro area member states, regardless of their level of economic development, would be given equal opportunities to use the budget to finance important objects. It was also underscored that Latvia does not see the added value of repeating the measures that are already planned to be financed by the EU budget – there should be clear criteria and distinction between the EU budget and the euro area budget.
Andrejs Vaivars
Press Secretary to the Prime Minister
Phone: 29228678
E-mail: Andrejs.Vaivars@mk.gov.lv