Cover Profile: Ambassador Andrejs Pildegovics Latvia Sobers Up As the Party Ends by Larry Luxner Only yesterday, it seems, Latvia was Europe’s fastest-rising star — a former Soviet republic that had transformed itself from an impoverished Baltic backwater into a high-tech haven with more cell phones than citizens. But Latvia grew too fast for its own good. These days, it’s one of the continent’s worst basket cases — and somewhat of a liability for the 27-member European Union, which admitted Latvia as a full member exactly five years ago this month. “In a way, we have become victims of our own success,” said Riga’s envoy here, Andrejs Pildegovics, in an unusually frank interview with The Washington Diplomat. Our meeting took place April 1, following violent protests earlier this year that brought down the center-right government of Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis — making Latvia’s government the second in Europe to collapse, after Iceland, in the wake of global financial chaos. Former Finance Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who leads the coalition that replaced Godmanis, must now deal with Latvia’s gravest economic crisis since independence — a looming disaster that also threatens prospects for recovery in the other two Baltic republics, Lithuania and Estonia (see related story). “This crisis is unprecedented in scope and scale, and we don’t know if we’ve seen the bottom yet,” Pildegovics warned. “Some economists are forecasting a contraction of 10 to 12 percent in 2009. It’s not impossible. This year is going to be very tough for many households.” On April 9, London-based Fitch Ratings downgraded all three Baltic states, citing their worsening economic situation, but the agency raised particular alarm about Latvia. “The downgrade of Latvia’s ratings,” said Fitch, “reflects the deterioration in the prospects for the Latvian economy and elevated risk of policy slippage” since Riga secured a $10 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund, European Union and other lenders in December. Under the conditions of the rescue package, the Dombrovskis government must dramatically slash spending. The new government has already made deep cuts, asking ministers to put together proposals for further cuts amounting to 20, 30 and 40 percent of planned spending. But the IMF has complained that it still must do more to bring down public spending, postponing a payment of 200 euro recently because of a lack of progress. Among other things, the government has promised not to run a deficit exceeding 5 percent of gross domestic product for 2009. But Dombrovskis warned in mid-April that unless Latvia receives the promised cash from the IMF, the EU and other lenders, the country could face bankruptcy by the end of June. And if Latvia falls, so will a string of Western European countries from Austria to Switzerland that hold Eastern Europe’s massive debts. The crisis has indeed pitted struggling Eastern neighbors against their wealthier Western counterparts, who are reluctant to bail out countries that gorged on credit. But not so long ago, the Baltics were the darlings of Western Europe. Latvia, about the size of West Virginia, is home to only 2.2 million people, 10 percent fewer than when it re-emerged as an independent country in 1991 following the breakup of the Soviet Union. That makes it much more populous than Estonia (with 1.3 million people), but not as populous as Lithuania (with 3.5 million people). “Over the last 18 years, we had regained freedom and independence, and we saw a very profound transition from a Soviet-style, centrally planned economy run from Moscow into a modern, free-market, European-style economy,” said Pildegovics. “It was a remarkable transition. When the U.S.S.R. imploded in 1990, we inherited the legacy of this bankrupt economic system. We turned the page and started a new chapter in our history.” At the time of the collapse, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia shared a reputation as “the happiest barracks in the Soviet Union,” the ambassador joked. But the Baltics paid a heavy price for independence, with GDP immediately falling by 40 percent and unemployment jumping to 20 percent as Latvia’s lifeline to Moscow was cut. The country’s low birth rate wasn’t enough to compensate for the mass emigration of ethnic Russians — who suddenly felt like foreigners — and Latvia’s population began dropping. Pildegovics, 37, was only 19 years old when Latvia — an ancient land that first declared independence in 1918 following World War I — regained its sovereignty and embraced both democracy and free-market reforms with unbridled enthusiasm. A specialist in Chinese history who studied at the University of St. Petersburg, the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute and Stanford University, Pildegovics served as foreign policy adviser to former President Vaira Vike-Freiberga from 2000 to 2006. He’s been at his current post since July 2007. “In many respects, we telescoped our development from a bankrupt socialist system into a 21st-century economy, and it was a real success story,” Pildegovics told The Diplomat. “We joined the Schengen [passport-free] zone. In May 2004, we were admitted to the EU. We normalized relations with Russia, and we joined NATO, so security is not an issue anymore. We hosted the NATO summit in Riga in 2006 to showcase the Baltics and demonstrate that our membership in NATO is irreversible.” Latvia’s entry into the EU was a “blessing which triggered a completely new ball game,” Pildegovics added. “People had mobility. Latvians could suddenly work everywhere in the EU. If you’re an IT specialist, you could easily earn twice as much in Ireland as in Latvia, so the government raised salaries to keep the smartest people from leaving the country. And excessive spending contributed to the rise in inflation.” The country’s GDP ballooned by an astonishing 11.9 percent in 2006 and 10.2 percent in 2007. It became a mecca for the high-tech, information-technology, and banking and service sectors; as such, Latvia was one of the first nations to achieve a telephone penetration rate exceeding 100 mobile lines per 100 people, quickly surpassing the United States in per-capita broadband Internet access. Yet as investors flocked to Latvia, the economy started showing signs of strain. “By 2006, it was overheating, and our current account deficit went as high as 22 percent. Banks were eager to provide loans for 30- to 40-year mortgages, at rates as low as 3 percent. A lot of cheap money was available on the market, and people were investing very aggressively. Money was flowing into the country from all over the EU,” Pildegovics explained. “People and companies thought this trend would go on. Remember that for the last 18 years, things were going only up and up, and for the last five-year stretch it was just mushrooming. We had an enormous explosion in economic activity. The wealth nearly doubled. But some economists were cautioning that the situation was not sustainable.” And they were right. Things came crashing down last year, when liquidity suddenly dried up and banks stopped lending. The government was forced to buy 85 percent of Latvia’s second-largest bank, Parex. It also slashed state salaries by 15 percent — a move that extended to all 11 employees of the Latvian Embassy in Washington, including the ambassador himself. “Psychologically, it’s a very difficult adjustment,” Pildegovics admitted. “One of our responsibilities is to objectively explain our own mistakes to the Latvian people.” Next Page

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