Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos (Switzerland), emphasized that strengthening of the fiscal discipline in the EU is the essential precondition for regaining stability.

During discussions, experts paid more attention to strengthening the competitiveness of Europe, focusing also on Latvia's contributions to ensuring it, which has been achieved by introducing fiscal discipline and implementing the reforms. Stability in Europe was the key theme of the panel "The Europe Context". Participants of the panel discussed the model of future Europe and changes, which affect the region. Experts agreed that Latvia's experience is a unique example for other EU Member States of the steps to be taken to regain stability after the financial crisis, and that the EU should stick to the decisions made regarding the fiscal discipline.

The Prime Minister also participated in the forum panels "Laying the Foundations for Europe's Renaissance", "Economic Leaders - Defining the Imperatives for 2013" and "Reforming Reforms - Pushing Europe's Competitiveness Agenda Forward", and discussed the challenges of the public administration capacity, overcoming the internal and external barriers, as well as reforms which Europe needs in order to regain its competitiveness in the global market.

The key issue of the forum was Europe's competitiveness. The prevailing opinion of discussions - the financial crisis has passed; there are no speculations about the stability of the euro area and, therefore, this year the focus should be on enhancement of Europe's medium-term and long - term competitiveness. Europe needs to pay more attention to strengthening of the internal market, use of the digital market's potential, forms of employment, infrastructure development, and transfer of innovations to knowledge, where Europe does not have strong positions, compared with other global players.

Latvia's experience of competitiveness increase and the results achieved through implementation of reforms are reflected by the production and export volume growth, which exceeds the pre-crisis figures. Prime Minister V.Dombrovskis presented Latvia to the forum's audience as an investment - friendly country. Moreover, the global business leaders gave positive feedback on our country's commitment to join the euro area.

Within the framework of the visit to Davos, V.Dombrovskis met Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament. The officials discussed Latvia's plans to join the euro area, as well as Latvia's priorities in the EU's Financial Framework for 2014 - 2020. The Prime Minister emphasized Latvia's interests - to ensure sufficient funding for cohesion projects that will contribute to faster approaching the levels of the most developed EU regions, as well as to achieve equitable distribution of direct agricultural payments.

During discussion with M.Schulz, the Prime Minister also emphasized that Latvia favours a united European Union where national parliaments maintain a central role in ensuring democratic representation.
During a meeting with Angel Gurr?a, Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Prime Minister said that joining the OECD is one of the key priorities of Latvia. The Prime Minister confirmed that Latvia meets the OECD enlargement criteria and is ready to begin the accession process. A.Gurr?a admitted that the decision to join the OECD is political unanimity of all Member States and, therefore, called on Latvia to actively explain its advantages during the meeting with representatives of the Member States.

The Prime Minister also met Laura Chinhilla, President of Costa Rica, and discussed ways to strengthen bilateral political dialogue and economic relations of the two countries.

The Prime Minister gave interviews to television channels "CNBC" and "Euronews", as well as "Bloomberg News", "Le Monde", "Handelsblatt".

As we have previously reported, the Prime Minister of Latvia is the only representative of the Baltic States in this forum. The forum brings together the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Italy, Kenya, Russia, the Netherlands, Peru and Sweden. In total, more than 2,600 leaders from business and academia, Heads of State and Government, managers of international organizations, as well as representatives from other areas are invited to participate in this year's World Economic Forum.

This is the second time that V.Dombrovskis is invited to participate in the prestigious World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. V.Dombrovskis attended this meeting for the first time as a Member of the European Parliament in 2008. In 2010, V.Dombrovskis participated in the World Economic Forum summit in Brussels devoted to European issues (World Economic Forum on Europe), but in September 2012, at the invitation of the organizers, the Prime Minister attended the World Economic Forum meeting (WEF Annual Meeting of the New Champions) in Tianjin - the city in China, the so-called "summer Davos".

More detailed information about the forum: www.weforum.org.
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/valstskanceleja/sets/72157632593269475/

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