Saeima On Thursday, July 2, approved the National Development Plan of Latvia for 2021-2027. (NAP2027), informed the Saeima Press Service.
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77 Members voted in favor, two against and two abstentions.
The Saeima decision emphasizes that a new medium-term planning period begins in Latvia and the European Union (EU) in 2021 and that Latvia needs a clear, balanced, well-founded and well-founded vision of national development, in the implementation of which investments will be made in the next seven years. significant EU and national budget resources.
NAP2027 is aimed at changing the habits of the society, striving for a higher quality of life, a more knowledgeable society, smarter entrepreneurship and greater responsibility for the quality of the environment in Latvia. The basis for this is a high-quality, efficient and developed education system that provides lifelong education to support the growth of every inhabitant of Latvia and the purposeful use of the acquired knowledge.
In the decision, Parliament noted that the rapid spread of Covid-19 around the world and the measures taken to contain the pandemic had a serious impact on the development of national economies. The crisis caused by the pandemic is also a serious test for Latvian society and the state. It is an opportunity to change habits and actions, plan national development and the state budget to achieve clearly defined goals, rather than fragmented by sectors, direct more resources to more productive growth of future sectors and ideas, less – to maintain an unproductive economic structure.
The decision states that the Covid-19 crisis has already demonstrated the relevance and importance of the NAP2027 theme “Changing Habits – The Road to Development” and the strategic goals of productivity and income, equal opportunities, regional development and social trust in terms of national sustainability.
Given the uncertain macroeconomic projections for the coming years, different future scenarios for the global spread of Covid-19 may materialize, and the country’s long-term development also depends on Covid-19 constraints and state support measures. whose performance most directly depends on public safety and health, as well as the mitigation of the effects of the Covid-19 wave, the decision said.
During this period, MEPs call on the Cabinet of Ministers to urgently implement and strengthen measures in the field of health care and public security to attract human resources to the state-paid health care services sector and improve the quality and accessibility of health care, especially for socially vulnerable people. It also called for measures to strengthen the capacity of the health care system, develop a centralized electronic patient health record and remote health services, cooperation capacity of the Ministry of Health, health care and security institutions and disaster and crisis preparedness, increasing state budget funding for health care, including salaries medical practitioners, as well as providing investments from EU funds. The decision calls for a determined effort to ensure that the state budget funding for health care during the implementation period of the NAP2027 is close to or even reaches the EU average; to maintain the public sector as an important player in the public care system by ensuring an adequate network of medical institutions throughout the country.
In the field of social protection and equal opportunities, MEPs call for special attention to be paid to ensuring a minimum income for all members of society and access to social, psychological and material support, especially for people in crisis and households, people at social risk, people at risk of poverty and social exclusion. population groups.
The decision also calls on the economy to provide the necessary state support to facilitate the availability of working capital and capital for companies, so that they can overcome the effects of the crisis more quickly and continue to improve their productivity. It also called for a digital transformation of the economy, taking advantage of the new opportunities offered by e-commerce and e-government, introducing new forms of employment, developing higher digital skills, high-quality data infrastructure, information and communication technology solutions and greater electronicisation of public services.
The decision also calls for the strengthening of the capacity of active labor market policies to respond to rising short-term unemployment, as well as for the development and implementation of sustainable labor market policies and a flexible lifelong learning system, enabling citizens to successfully enter the future labor market; to support targeted investments in the resilience of enterprises and the ability to adapt existing plants and service delivery platforms for the production of new, marketable products and services, including by promoting a more efficient use of local resources.
MEPs call for support for investment in infrastructure important for public security, energy efficiency, including district heating, and the development of security of supply for local economies as part of a comprehensive national defense, in order to promote resilience, crisis resilience and recovery as soon as possible; to support the strengthening of the rule of law and investment protection.
The decision emphasizes the need to promote a more rapid and sustainable transformation of the Latvian economy during the NAP2027 implementation period, increase targeted public and private sector investment in science and education, especially higher education and lifelong learning, and R&D to move towards R&D in the long term, at least three percent of GDP, thus approaching the level of the most successful countries in the Baltic Sea region in terms of creating innovations.
The deputies also point out that the Saeima has decided to include regional development in the set of strategic goals of the NAP2027 and that the initiated administrative-territorial reform must help solve such challenges as promoting polycentric development, reducing peripheral effects and strengthening cultural and historical diversity in new administrative territories. The Cabinet of Ministers is instructed to assess the potential of development centers in the merged municipalities as a result of administrative-territorial reform and to propose to the Saeima together with the mid-term evaluation of the implementation of the NAP2027 the revision of development centers specified in the Latvian Sustainable Development Strategy until 2030.
The decision also emphasizes the need to preserve and nurture Latvia’s cultural heritage, promote creative processes, develop a diverse cultural environment, fully operate in the European and world cultural space, provide support to the cultural and media industries to reduce the crisis and recover, create socially responsible and sustainable employment models. in these sectors, as they play a crucial role in shaping national identity and the functioning of a democratic society.
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