When we arranged to meet for a conversation, there were only a few very specific questions we wanted to discuss, for example, in Latvia, discussion and unease flare up from time to time about whether it is possible to hold several offices at once, and how and whether it works. In the end, thanks to the mutual interest of both parties, the meeting turned out to be both wider in its range of topics and considerably longer than planned. Food supply and security; whether local authorities really govern themselves; how to educate people, and whether the question of small rural schools is genuinely being weighed with foresight. These topics are, one hopes, not eternal, because somebody will one day take them on and settle them, but an essential part of the solution is to keep reminding people of them.

You are Chairman of the Board of the Latvian Rural Advisory and Training Centre (LLKC), and this year you were elected to Bauska municipal council. How do you manage to combine two serious posts?

The invitation to stand for election did not come this year, but 4-5 years ago. Having accumulated a certain amount of life and work experience, and having concluded that the relatively recent administrative and territorial reform had not delivered the hoped-for results, I wanted to give Bauska and the municipality at least a little of my work and knowledge. I live near Bauska myself, I do not plan to move, and I can see that my children will live there too, so the municipality's development matters a great deal to me.

After the reform, my view of how regions and places outside or far from the development centres ought to develop did not match at all what I actually saw. At the time the pre-election programme was being drawn up I was very far from politics, and used to describe myself as apolitical; then Uldis Pīlēns's association took shape, and later "Apvienotais saraksts", which at least gave me an insight into a different approach to working in the regions. When I got involved in these activities I did not give much thought to the possibility of being elected, but, as it turned out, I was. It should be mentioned that in the days when local government was centred on the parishes, I served two terms (eight years) as a councillor of Ceraukste parish, so I do have some experience. In a small parish a councillor's work was very simple; it can be compared to running a small farm. Now, in Bauska municipality, I can see that the same principle of parish administration I once knew is being continued, only across a considerably larger territory. That attitude did not leave a positive impression on me — rather a very depressing one.

Being in deep opposition — one against all the rest — gave me a certain experience, even a certain toughening, because in that situation not much is asked of you: whatever you have thought up yourself, whatever you want to do, you do. As it happened, I worked on only one committee (education), the one I was "allowed" to serve on. We could talk about that at greater length, but what surprised me was that, and how, municipal councillors duplicate the work of the executive, although it ought to be the other way round. To put it a little figuratively, for a while in Bauska council I felt like a teacher marking the executive's mistakes in a test paper. It struck me as a fairly absurd situation — dealing with everyday trivia instead of strategic questions.

To answer your question about combining jobs: a councillor's work mostly meant going through documents at the computer in the evenings, which altogether took about eight hours a month and caused no difficulties whatsoever. In this term it is much the same, there are no problems, because I am often used to working 24/7. My working day has never ended at 5 p.m.; there are always another 2-3 hours at the computer at home, when I can deal with the small things that have piled up during the day. I regret that, having spent 20 years like that, I did not notice my children growing up.

I hope that in future I may be able to give more to the municipality, because I have the knowledge and the experience. I hope to achieve greater involvement of residents, because at present the gulf between the people of the municipality and what goes on in the council is enormous, even abnormal. There is no mutual understanding of what the council does and what matters to residents. Since my work has involved me in various projects, brought me into contact with representatives of various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and taken me to all sorts of events, I can see and I believe that something has to change, because the current style of local government work cannot last long. If I once thought that the huge bureaucratic machines were in the ministries, local authorities are now starting to gain the upper hand. All the flows of documents that are demanded and scrutinised are something monstrous. In this term too I am in a qualified opposition on the council, so practically nothing has changed and it does not interfere with my working routine.

One more important point — my middle son is taking over our small family farm, he wants to farm, and that will certainly take some of the load off me.

So, in addition to the duties already mentioned, you also have a farm near Ceraukste.

In the 1990s my parents recovered the land that had once belonged to my grandfather, and I undertook not to sell it, but to look after it and maintain it. We farmed it; the promise I had given had to be kept, and I had to bear in mind that, holding my present post at LLKC, I cannot be sure whether I will still be working there a year from now... The land has always been a guarantee and a foundation — if anything happens, I will be able to support and feed my family.

To sum up, you have experience in agriculture, in running a large institution, and in politics.

I have always found myself between "two worlds", namely the countryside and politics. Seeing how rural regions develop elsewhere in Europe, it has always seemed to me that here rural development strategy has not been properly valued; the focus is still only on Rīga. The path taken by the capital's institutions — deciding how the regions should develop — has not, in my view, been the right one, nor has it brought the results that ought to have been achieved. It is important that people believe in the relevant policy. They do not...

Both in public and on social media, people who are well known and considered clever often respond briefly when they hear about problems in the countryside or on some farm: "That happens every year!" I take it that our shops have never run a "refreshing" promotion in which some everyday essential was missing... Similar statements are made about forests, bogs and peat: "I take the view that..." or "I think that..." Why is so little attention paid in Rīga to the people directly involved in managing land, bogs and waters? For instance, if some farmer or forest owner wants a freer hand, even hardened opponents of bureaucracy will speak up: "No! We are against bureaucracy, but... this lot must not be given a free rein!"

In 2024, while working on LLKC programmes, I served on a working group that examined whether rural Latvia has a development strategy and what we would gain if it did. Unfortunately, the group of researchers concluded that Latvia has no rural development strategy. I am not talking separately about agriculture, forestry, peat extraction or fisheries, which are sectors, but about a rural development strategy for Latvia. The conclusion has to be that Latvia has no clear vision for the countryside.

What has there been? "Something" produced in the European Union: various and numerous documents, the National Development Plan, but that was quickly "finished off" by those hungry for money once they got their hands on it. There are excellent documents, sound in conception, that are not always connected with reality, because there is not enough money for everyone...

The working group I mentioned met representatives of the State Chancellery and presented the rural development strategies of Finland and the Czech Republic as good examples. Both countries have set up a rural development council. The Finns, for instance, have demonstrated superbly, with calculations, why schools are needed in rural areas and why money must be invested so that rural areas have high-quality education. Here, somebody in Rīga decides that a school in a parish of Bauska municipality near the Lithuanian border is not needed, and the school is very simply "shut up shop". This is justified, of course, by mystical pupil-number criteria dreamed up in Rīga.

When I met colleagues in Sēlija, they asked me: "Who exactly said that 50 children is few, and on what basis? In Sēlija that is a lot!" Why can people in Sēlija not decide about their own schools, why are the criteria drawn up elsewhere? In Bauska municipality, Mežgaļi school was closed; I personally know families from the surrounding area who moved to Bauska. Yes, we talk a great deal about regional development, and there is a whole ministry for it (which has, however, turned into a ministry of local government, regulating local authorities)! In this way any policy often turns into a policy of redistributing resources, nothing more.

I am alarmed by the fact that 80% of the food we consume is imported (these are official figures). The large retail chains have been given a free hand — local or imported, it makes no difference to them who brings the cheapest required goods to the shop. Local produce disappears from the supermarkets. Here we must remember an essential and still topical question — security. In connection with the Finns already mentioned, I would stress one thing: they have never stopped preparing for war, building bunkers; their farmers are ready for all sorts of situations, and so on. The Finns have a 1,340-kilometre border with Russia and the harsh experience of 1939. Since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we in Latvia still have not grasped the question of security of food supply. When I talk to Ukrainian colleagues, they often stress that it is the small farms that feed the country. The large ones have suffered greatly in the war; the small ones are trying to make up for that, and doing so successfully. Of course, the large producers and large-scale growers have not gone anywhere, but somehow the Covid-19 period has been forgotten, when we saw perfectly clearly what food security means. In some European countries supplies broke down for a few days and people were out on the streets. Here it often seems that many people think produce is always in the shops, or simply turns up there of its own accord.

In Austria, for example, after 24 February 2022 several regions began drawing up a self-sufficiency strategy: the land provides food, building materials and energy, so we have everything we need, we just have to use it. It looks as though this strategy will actually be implemented in Styria. If something unforeseen happens outside the country, thinking and acting in this way will keep us safe.

There is another question that is little discussed. When the Latvian armed forces enquired about food supplies from Latvian farmers, there was not really much to offer. Why? We are large-scale producers, but in this case many products are needed on the plate, because grain and rape and a glass of milk are not enough on their own — you need meat, you need potatoes, you need vegetables. The plate has to be full! And it is precisely all this that we have less and less of every year!

We have been working with the Ministry of Agriculture on the new rural development strategy, and I think that one day we shall have to sit down at the table in a wider circle to work out what we want in Latvia. One issue is security, the other is people. We can talk at length and cleverly about the eastern border and its security. We took the European Commissioner for Agriculture to Daugavpils and Rēzekne; he understood the situation, because he is from Luxembourg, in other words from a small country. He spent a fair amount of time in Daugavpils, including in a nightclub, and concluded that a great deal of Russian is spoken there. Why? The Commissioner was accompanied by an adviser whose home country is Poland. We concluded that before the visit neither of them had understood our concerns about the eastern border, and that during the meetings that understanding came about. A small country next to an unpredictable neighbour, with fewer and fewer people in the border regions — yet the banks, for instance, have shaped their policy without taking that into account, or ignoring it altogether. Perhaps now, with the involvement of the Ministry of Economics, the banks' attitude will change, opening up opportunities to finance business in regions further from Rīga as well.

To close this topic, I shall return to Austria, where the conclusion was reached that if somebody keeps repeating that the place where you live has no prospects, people gradually start to leave. As soon as the thinking changes — "no, we can do this and that here" — as soon as people themselves start taking part and joining in, the situation changes too. That, in my view, is where the task of local authorities lies — not waiting for oversight or instructions from Rīga, but acting themselves! In conversations with the European Commissioner for Agriculture, too, we concluded that the greatest drivers of bureaucracy are auditors at various levels, who follow what is set out in legislation punctiliously and pedantically, picking on officials over inaccuracies, with the officials then reacting accordingly.

Another matter that would certainly be connected with security in the regions is education and knowledge. Hybrid warfare, including the flow of people crossing the border illegally; calls to "forget about the war"; the sufficiency of wood supplies; rural employment — as soon as such questions are raised, a great and prolonged row breaks out. A great many people in Latvia support Ukraine, but over time you can sense that people are beginning to perceive the war going on nearby as just another item in the daily news, as something very far away. What should be done so that security is not merely the belief that somebody else will take care of it while we carry on as usual?

Presumably it has to be talked about and thought through within the family. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I discussed with my brothers what we would do. Clearly, we are not going to flee; we have families and farms, land that we will not abandon. Security is a matter of each person's own understanding — of what Latvia means to me personally. In Ukraine too many people left in the first days of the war, but as I have heard it said, ordinary people stayed and defended their land. People have to be given the conviction that this is their country, their land, their Latvia. If it is my value, I shall defend it.

I lived through what was called the Iron Curtain, and I feel the freedom we have now, which many already take for granted. A generation has grown up that thinks all this came about by itself, or was even always there.

I must say that I know Latvia very well, because LLKC has offices in every municipality. The situation varies; in Alūksne, for example, they cannot find two young people for training courses, because there are none. There was a time when it was no trouble at all to find as many as 10 young people for that purpose. That too is an indicator of how the situation in the countryside is changing.

Take what looks like a small thing: Bauska municipality organises a procurement for school catering for the next 4-5 years, the sum involved is large, but if that money ends up with a Polish farmer rather than a local one... Either the Latvian farmer will stop working his fields, or he will start doing something else. Money that ought to stay in the municipality, so that it is precisely the municipality's people who have work, production and development, goes elsewhere. My Finnish colleagues do not understand a question put like that — in Finland it is inconceivable that "non-locals" would feed Finnish schoolchildren in local schools.

There is a long-standing explanation for that: the cheapest tender still prevails. If you do not choose it, they will answer you with a string of regulations, legal acts and so on. From ministries and politicians, though, we hear something quite different. Who is responsible for this state of affairs?

Fear of oversight is a good cover for not making any unnecessary effort and for doing little thinking. It is easier that way! In a large proportion of local authority schools there are no longer any kitchens of their own; a contractor brings the food, lays the tables, clears up, and everything supposedly works. Where do the products come from? That is not important.

There are very good examples in Vidzeme, where local authorities have a political precondition: we want to work with local people. Good acquaintances told me about their own experience in this connection: their son attended school in Valmiera, ate his lunches happily, everything was fine; the parents moved to another municipality, another school, another caterer — the previous quality was gone, and the boy had been used to being fed as if at home.

I am glad that the procurement system is being changed and brought closer to European Union conditions, which would be closer to the principles of sustainability. Of course, conditions vary across Europe, but a potato brought from Spain will not, all things considered, be as good as a local one grown on a neighbouring farm or one in your own parish. The important question is how to restore farmers' confidence in local consumption. A peculiar situation has developed, one that our Minister for Agriculture, being a farmer himself, understands perfectly: world markets are more attractive and have greater purchasing power. If some school happens to decide to buy only organic food, it must be remembered that this is quite expensive.

A good example in this respect is the Līgatne school for young leaders, where the head teacher buys everything directly from farmers, without middlemen. At this school the young people feast on organically farmed trout, for example. How is that possible? There is no middleman taking 30-40%. In our conversation the head teacher mentioned a significant fact: "By talking and agreeing directly with the producer or grower, I keep comfortably within the small financial limits allocated to me, the ones other people complain make it impossible to do anything." This kind of short supply chain was once well known, but for some reason I do not know it was done away with. So there are no short chains, and a great deal (almost everything) is bought from wholesale depots, which in turn buy their stock from large producers whose output will very rarely be local, or as safe. This is one example where I very much hope for change. Latvia's food market is large, measurable in billions in money terms, which bears no comparison with the arguments over one million or another. If we could get just half of one billion, we would be able to feed people in hospitals and in the army (which, incidentally, has quite an appetite, if I may put it that way, and is demanding), and we would have money left over for other needs. This is a failure of strategy, because local authorities are not always answerable for what happens in their municipalities. Colleagues in Tukums had calculated what one euro sent out of the municipality means: for local residents it "takes away" two euros. If the caterer in Bauska municipality is not local and is paid eight million, that means at least 16 million not gained, which is a lot of money for the municipality.

I can talk about this subject at great length and with some force; I have been studying it for at least eight years, and I understand that we are losing ground in the local market. We have excellent export results and earn substantial income, but the local potential remains untapped.

Assessing the situation from various angles, it has been shown that small and medium-sized farmers can farm 100 hectares perfectly well (cattle require the most land), and a farm turnover of around 120,000 euros a year makes it possible to support yourself and those around you decently and to feel secure about land as a resource. On that last point, I view Latvia's large farms without heirs with some anxiety — what will happen when such a farm comes onto the market? I dare say we shall see that happen at some point. In Estonia, a mysterious global investment fund appeared relatively recently and bought up land, but turned a well-tended property into an industrial park that people do not want to live near.

We certainly need to think about tax policy, remembering that life outside the city is by no means cheap.

How does LLKC work with its near neighbour, the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies (LBTU)?

Education is a painful subject for me, because in more than 30 years of independence our education system has not been reformed. Reforms are talked about, something supposedly happens, but the most important thing has been missing — clarity about what model of education we ought to introduce. It is much the same as in the healthcare system: cutting off the cat's tail one small piece at a time, wasting time.

I once studied in Denmark, where I took a great interest in how Danish farmers acquire their knowledge. Danish farmers are not taught at universities. Those who run their own farms study at secondary vocational and technical level, where they are prepared to manage farms. This is the tier that we in Latvia have managed neither to build nor to consolidate. There has been plenty of clever discussion about it, but it has gone no further. We have no schools that train people (livestock specialists, agronomists, horticulturists) to run their own farms. Latvia has 24,000 farms engaged in livestock production, but no corresponding educational institution.

I recently took the heads of several schools to Sweden and Germany to exchange experience. If our young person has to compete with a Swedish contemporary who has studied at a local technical college, ours will unfortunately lose in a single set. Sweden's future farmers are given the very best in order to master their profession. Agricultural schools in Latvia were, it seems, short-sightedly handed over to the Ministry of Education and Science, so that it could do something... The forestry sector did not forget Ogre technical college and, whatever else may be the case, it does get its specialists back.

The next level is university. That is where top-level managers and advisers are educated, as well as ministry staff. If you graduate from it, you will have studied for at least 7-10 years in all. Forgive me, those who think otherwise, but in my view the tiers of education were better and more far-sightedly arranged in what are called the Soviet years.

As for cooperation with LBTU, I badly need livestock specialists, and there are none. It must be remembered that Europe is coming with new requirements that call for a different level of preparation, and once again we have to talk about the lack of a strategy. LBTU is an important link in preparing top-level managers. LBTU is my own university, I shall always support it and try to help, but I have to send graduate economists on professional development courses to learn the basics of agriculture. Economists who graduated in Jelgava were once very strong in agriculture.

As for adult education, it is very harsh. Any member of the audience can get up and walk out at any moment if something does not seem important or interesting to them, which is why we assess the lecturers we choose very carefully and thoroughly. It happens that a farmer is better educated than the lecturers or advisers. The forestry sector, in my view, is a step ahead of the rest; you can sense that it is business-oriented. Forestry is a long-term business that demands planning and long-term thinking.

How does the LLKC team cope with the arguments about and around the forestry sector?

We often feel we are, and are, caught between the millstones. Every forest owner or manager has his own philosophy of life and work. Speaking of the forestry sector, is it possible to be any closer to nature? In the forest you cannot act foolishly, because every mistake can cost a great deal. I often see that those who tend the land and think in terms of sustainability take great care of the environment, of roads, of drainage. Of course, as everywhere, dialogue and a sensible approach to the issues are extremely important. I have travelled a great deal around Europe and been to countries to the west of us where practically every cow parsley plant is protected, because it is a great rarity there. If we in Latvia counted our natural assets properly, we would have to say: "Good heavens, how rich we are!" Coming back from a trip abroad and looking out of the aeroplane window, all you can do is rejoice at how green and beautiful we are! If we want to find something more somewhere, it seems to me that is because somebody needs an occupation. Everyone who comes here and gets to know Latvia's nature praises our assets, praises how environmentally friendly and green we are. I have never met a landowner who objected to natural assets; true landowners are glad of them — but again, sensible dialogue is lacking. What is happening now? The opposite: worried about the possible consequences, more than one skilled manager is prepared to harvest the forest sooner, so as not to have to deal with unreasonable interference or with people from outside laying down the law.

Suppose a person plans his time, his work and his finances and has, say, 10 hectares of forest, and suddenly somebody forbids him to fell it when the time has come. By way of comparison, imagine you have two hectares of wheat and somebody forbids you to harvest it, so that it rots, because "that is what this somebody has decided". That is not dialogue, that is not normal practice.

I recently came across an excellent example in Magdeburg (Germany), where a small local rodent is protected. The Germans brought together local farmers and local environmental organisations and had them draw up joint projects for protecting the little creature, so that both sides would understand what it involved. The farmer understood what it meant for the environment, and the representatives of the environmental organisations understood what it meant for the farmer. A common denominator and compensating mechanisms were found. As long as everyone sits in their own office, a good result is effectively impossible.

Would such joint work be possible in Latvia?

Definitely! We need to make a start, find good examples abroad and see what can be done here.

Presumably such cooperation would have to start from the "bottom up", and not with the involvement of the loudest voices.

There must be data, figures, data-based decisions, and researchers must be involved.

In Latvia it often happens that people with doctorates in one field forget what they themselves have researched and try to challenge the conclusions of researchers in other fields. Those doing the challenging mostly neither know their way around that other field nor understand it...

You are touching in part on a serious and broad subject — whom people trust and whom they listen to. The social media bubble that forms is dangerous. It affects the work of my colleagues, the advisers, too. Why does populism win rather than intellect? Populism is essentially attractive, whereas intellect can be intimidating. Intellect can show that in a given field I might have to be described as, say, not particularly clever. It happens that a person confronted with intellectual superiority feels diminished in their own abilities, and therefore chooses the populist.

I trust farmers, their data and their practical experience more.

There is a problem with talking to one another at another level too: as soon as a topical issue reaches the political agenda and the chance to ban or restrict something, all the previous conversations vanish as if they had never happened. That attitude is very hard to cope with, it takes time, which by the day seems to have been wasted.

Again, a subject for a whole interview. I think that in 35 years of independence we still have not learned the basic principles of democratic dialogue, which are highly developed among the Scandinavians. Yes, they spend a great deal of time on issues, they can argue not for hours but for days, but once the arguments end and an agreement has been reached, it is observed. This year I visited the large Nordic company "Valio", which has clear plans already running to 2050 — in other words, 25 years ahead.

If in Latvia we want the state to derive economic benefit from the forests, and if such an agreement has been reached, then it stands and remains in force, and there is no need to keep returning to the question. Big agreements matter, and they are meant to hold for at least the next 10 years. Here, unfortunately, things are different.

It has seemed for a long time that here it is businesses that have a long-term vision, not the state, if you look at the large forestry companies.

Of course, because businesses have to make a living from it. This year I carried out a plan that I initially called adventurous myself, namely to show the wider public Lizums — an outstanding Latvian parish, a splendid example for anyone. The parish has excellent infrastructure, a school, jobs; people are brought to work by bus from nearby parishes. The parish produces more than the rest of the municipality. When you look at such a fine example, you understand how important the message is: let us work, do not get in our way! A similar model can be put into practice elsewhere too. Here and there we still have wild capitalism, but in Lizums, as far as I can see, everything has been achieved through an empathetic and selfless vision. I have heard people say: "I sell what I produce outside Latvia, I do not care what goes on here!" You cannot not care! You cannot be happy if you have not put your own mind and thinking in order — you have to put your own yard in order and then go elsewhere.

Lizums is a splendid parish, one to be proud of both near and far!

In Lizums there are "four pillars" at work, with a great many more beneath them. It is a micro-model worth paying attention to. An important fact is that Lizums is about 130 kilometres from Rīga, in other words in a region the banks look at without interest — "We shall not be lending there."

How do you work with the forestry sector's NGOs?

I myself have been active in the Farmers' Federation since 1994, though that is a farmers' organisation. In forestry we work more closely with the Latvian Forest Owners' Association and the Latvian Forest Industry Federation. Business organisations are usually very consistent and goal-oriented, and their representatives know what is what. We work with NGOs on drawing up the new agricultural strategy. If we look at Europe, farmers there are a significant force. It must be remembered that once you are in an NGO you no longer represent yourself, but a group that has agreed on something, and that must certainly be taken into account. Often you have to set your own selfish interests aside and think about the common good. The association "Mazjūras zvejnieki" calls me their godfather; Latvia's coast is an enormous asset that is in fact languishing, or all but dying. If you travel to a similar region in Scandinavia, life there is buzzing.

This year I had an unfortunate experience of a kind typical of Latvia. At one event, a representative from Rīga decided that the capital could determine whether and when ice cream might be sold in a coastal village. Look, why can the villagers not decide that for themselves? For civically active people, what matters most is dialogue and agreement. At present, in talks with representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, we are trying to change, even to break, a long-standing stereotype: a development strategy has to be drawn up by the sector itself, not in the ministry. The ministry is ready to implement it, but you — sheep farmers, beekeepers, foresters and the rest — draw up a plan of what you want to do. It is the sector, not the ministry, that needs a strategy most.

How, and does, the party leadership in Rīga influence the work of councillors in the municipalities?

Like it or not, somewhere and at some point certain interests show through and can be felt. Local elections are a rough gauge of what might be expected in the Saeima elections. When I was active in Uldis Pīlēns's association, which was apolitical, I could be a member of any party and nobody reproached me for anything. More attention was paid to bringing an entrepreneurial spirit into politics, which was put into practice by Aiva Vīksna and Andris Kulbergs. It was an interesting attempt to involve business people.

I still dislike the principle of party lists in municipal elections. If only the captain could gather the best team from all the lists... As it is, parties' internal rules leave a certain stamp on things, and this is often linked to the Saeima. Municipal councillors are as far from the Saeima as it is possible to be. In a recent interview Indulis Emsis said that lately people have been standing in elections with no aim... and are being elected. If you go into politics, you have to have an aim. I have one: the municipal administration is a small one (I have seen an example of this in Austria). Working in the municipality, I dislike pulling the blanket in any one direction — if you are elected in the municipality, you represent the whole municipality, not a parish, a company or an organisation.

A topical issue in Bauska municipality — the Bauska bypass.

When Tālis Linkaits was Minister for Transport, he was surprised, talking about this question, that there was so much discussion of the Bauska bypass but no project at an advanced stage of readiness. In earlier years there was an idea that it was needed, but there was a high-level failure to reach agreement. I have well-founded suspicions that an instruction will come from Brussels — "It is needed!" — and the Iecava and Bauska bypasses will be built, because a promise has been made that the A7 will be put in order and money has been allocated for it too.

It seems we are touching on a long-standing issue — towns and the national transit roads that cross them. Who has to repair them, who will provide the money?

If we were to ask what Latvia's infrastructure development strategy is, it appears there is none. Infrastructure projects ought to be planned for much longer periods — 10-20, even 30 years (at present planning is done for a four-year period). I think matters of this kind should be dealt with by the Ministry of Transport together with the municipalities or towns involved. Take, for example, the idea of what is called the Zemgale belt — Dobele-Bauska-Aizkraukle, bypassing Rīga and Ogre: if the municipalities joined forces and came forward with a clear wish and vision, the plan would start to move.