Latvia's only Russian-speaking MEP, Tatjana Zdanoka (Greens), is pushing for EU action on the rights of non-Latvian speakers in her home country.
Some 450,000 ethnic Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians currently live in Latvia but are being denied citizenship unless they pass a test on the Latvian language and take an oath of loyalty to the state.
The group, which represents almost 20 per cent of the country's population, cannot vote, cannot hold most types of public posts and r...
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.