In search of Europe: Latvia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/europe/8060792.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Latvia is in shock after going from boom to bust, the BBC's Jonny Dymond reports, as he tours the continent ahead of next month's European elections.

In a small village school in the middle of nowhere, 200km (124 miles) south of Riga, the day is about to begin.

JONNY DYMOND I'm Jonny Dymond and I've said goodbye to the BBC Brussels bureau for the next few weeks. I'll be taking the temperature in nine EU member states before the European Parliament elections on 4-7 June. I'm going to ask voters what they think of the EU and what their priorities are. Join me on the trip! <a class="" href="#map">Jonny Dymond's route map</a> <a class="" href="#postform">Your comments</a>

A bell rings, a gaggle of children mill around a well-decorated but gently decaying building and then make their way to lessons.

Watching them is Ilga Cera, 61, snowy-haired, plump and wrinkled. Her father attended the school, as did she, as did her children. But this term will be her last, and the school's.

It is a victim of both falling enrolment and the crisis in the Latvian state's finances. Hard times have come to a country that up until late last year was one of the Booming Baltics.

"The closure is very painful for me," she says "Four teachers will lose their jobs. It is very hard to lose these jobs now. Because all those teachers who lose their jobs have families and some of them are the only ones who earn money in the family.

"These are very difficult times."

Ilga Cera has a long attachment to the local school - but it is now ending

That's an understatement. These are terrible times for Latvia, all the more terrible because they follow years of double-digit growth, when one of the poorest of the EU's new member states looked as if it might leapfrog ahead of slower neighbours.

Construction boomed. Credit flooded in. Unemployment dropped to its lowest ever level.

And then, the screeching crash. In a year unemployment doubled to 13.9%. Output is expected to fall by at least 16% in 2009.

Money appeared to flow like water in the good years. The streets of Riga are still thick with BMWs, Mercedes and Audis. But don't try selling them at anything less than firesale prices.

"You like to say that we spent a lot of money in the past five years," says Zanete Jaunzeme-Grende, head of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Ms Jaunzeme-Grende is sceptical about some Western business values

"Yes, but I want to say that we want to live in the same level of life as Sweden, Germany and France."

Ms Jaunzeme-Grende calls Latvia a "mirror" to the West, accusing parts of Europe, and the US, of warped values that places a higher value on venture capitalists than teachers. She compares, only half-joking, the EU to the USSR, laughing a little hysterically as she does so.

Latvia, she says, is suffering under a burden of EU regulations and directives it can do little or nothing to influence. And if there is no more help from the International Monetary Fund, she suggests, international debt default beckons.

Down in Riga's main job centre - redecorated courtesy of the European taxpayer - there is more criticism of the EU.

The main room is overflowing with new claimants, chairs spilling out into the corridor. And amongst the men and women waiting, there is an ill-defined resentment of the EU, for somehow allowing to the country to boom out of control after membership was granted.

As for the elections, well, don't hold your breath waiting for debate on European issues. The vote in Latvia will be about nothing but domestic issues.

"Politicians don't care about these [European] elections," says Filips Rejevskis, a political analyst.

"People are thinking that this is an election not for representing them in the European Parliament but more we are choosing eight people who will have a good life for the next four years, very good, very well paid, very comfortable life."

Ice hockey is a welcome diversion from Latvia's economic woes

As the evening draws in, a small crowd gathers at the ice rink at the town of Jelgava, about 40km (25 miles) out of Riga.

Hulking 4x4s and top-of-the-range German imports line the car park.

Either the pain of this crisis is very unevenly spread or there are some big debts still to be paid amongst the drivers.

Inside, two amateur ice hockey players swish and slam across the ice, sending the puck hammering up and down the rink. Ice hockey is a national passion in Latvia, and gives some clue to the feisty national character.

Watching her husband play is Svetlana Batorina, 40, a businesswoman. Her baby Bozhena, somewhat remarkably, sleeps through the crashes and bangs, whoops and cheers. Svetlana is thoroughly hard-headed about the crisis

"As an employer," she says, "I keep explaining that there is a decrease in manufacturing in our company, and our incomes are lower as well, but people still have the same mindset as they did before the crisis."

It didn't seem like that at the school, in the morning, or at the job centre at lunchtime.

But one thing is very clear. Latvia today is entering waters uncharted since independence in 1991. It suddenly seems very much on the edge of Europe, in need of help as it pitches and tosses on the rough seas of the turbulent global economy.

<a class="bodl" href="/1/hi/world/europe/8054990.stm">In search of Europe: Sweden</a>

<a class="bodl" href="/1/hi/world/europe/8045178.stm">In search of Europe: UK</a>

<a class="bodl" href="/1/hi/world/europe/8039493.stm">In search of Europe: Ireland</a>

<a class="bodl" href="/1/hi/world/europe/8024829.stm">In search of Europe: France</a>

4 May - France8 May - Ireland12 May - UK 16 May - Sweden21 May - Latvia25 May - Poland 29 May - Austria2 June - Italy5 June - Germany

<a class="bodl" href="#goback">Click to return</a>

<hr/>

Send your comments on Jonny's feature and any questions for him using the form below:

The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/">Terms & Conditions</a>

<a class="bodl" href="#goback">Click to return</a>