KIEV, Ukraine — Latvia’s center-right coalition government collapsed Friday, a victim of the country’s growing economic and political turmoil. It was the second European government, after Iceland, to disintegrate because of the international financial crisis.
The government in Riga, faced with forecasts of a severe drop in the economy this year, was the first in Eastern Europe to succumb to turmoil caused by the crisis. Its collapse rounded out a week in which worries about feeble investment and output and shaky banks in Central and Eastern Europe coursed through international markets.
Latvia has had a history of revolving-door politics and complex coalitions since pulling free of the Soviet Union in 1991. Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis, who presented his resignation to President Valdis Zatlers on Friday, had been in power only since December 2007. But the precipitous plunge of Latvia’s economy, which helped provoke riots last month that were the country’s worst since 1991, played a major part in the government’s downfall.
Mr. Godmanis said he would continue to govern until a new coalition was formed.
His departure comes at a critical juncture for Latvia, a country of 2.2 million people. After entering the European Union in 2004, Latvia and its neighbors Estonia and Lithuania posted Europe’s highest growth figures, earning the moniker the Baltic Tigers. Now Latvia shows the Continent’s biggest losses.
(link)Another one bites the dust . . . !
I wonder if Lithuania or Estonia will be next. 'Course, the big one--Russia--could have a revolution. There have been riots in Moscow, among other places in Russia.
I know, it's from the
New York Times . . .
