On Monday, 20 September, representatives of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM) will be present in Rezekne, in order to meet the management of the Interim Administration of the City Council of Rezekne and the municipality of Rezekne. As WE HAVE informed THE press service, the meeting is planned to discuss the issue of the development of strategic documents. 

“At the end of 2020, all newly established municipalities and municipalities developing joint programming documents had the opportunity to apply for a national target to cover the cost of drafting these programming documents. All municipalities applied for the target grant, including Rezekne and Rezekne municipality. The application has been submitted, the part of the financing has been received, but the work on the development programme has not been started among the municipalities involved in the various disputes. It is planned to discuss the situation,” – spokesperson of the press service.

The municipality of Rēzekne has repeatedly expressed concern that the activities and passive attitudes of the city may result in financial consequences, that is, by failing to draw up documents within the time limit laid down by law.

This issue, as one of the stumbling stones in the municipality of Rezekne and Rezekne, was also mentioned in the consultations on a possible merger of municipalities in 2025. The argument put forward by Alexander Bartachvich, President of the City Council of Rēzekne, that the city's delay was linked to the postponed elections in the municipality and the appointment of the interim administration, did not hold the criticism, as the work on the programme had to be launched for a long time before the election, when the previous Members' composition was still in operation.

“Novada calls for cooperation and finally launching work on the development of a single strategy development programme remain unresponsive, we are now reminding the work of this work since November 2020, we have repeatedly turned to a letter in the City Council of Rezekne, we have repeatedly turned, unfortunately, even a formal reply has not been received,” – said Montweed Schwartz. “What i call on the ministry is to assess the inactivity of the City Council of Rēzekne, because if we do not have a development strategy at this time, as it is laid down in the relevant law, and the programme, then it will be an obstacle to speaking at all in the next programming period about the financial attraction of any programme.“ I'm very nervous at this moment. ”

IN an interview to Latvian radio, the Vice-Secretary of State for Regional Development, Ilze, said that the development programme is the basis for applying for additional funding from the public sector, so that it is really important, and this development programme plays a major role in the context of European funds, so that local governments, both for one and the other, would be essential for these documents to be prepared. In his view, the deadline, which is in the Cabinet regulations regarding the transfer of the document to the public consultation, will be very difficult in this case, but the extension of possible time periods will be decided after Monday meeting with representatives of the municipality of Rezekne and Rezekne.