Sesks Outraged: Riga Gets Indefinite Status, Liepāja Until 2050 - Is This a New Form of Discrimination?

Liepāja SEZ board chairman Uldis Sesks is thoroughly outraged. Turns out, Riga and Ventspils free ports have indefinite regulation, but Liepāja for some reason has to live with the thought that after 2050 there could be a legal mess. "That's quite unfair to the regions," says Sesks, and we have to admit – the man isn't far from the truth.

The situation is like that famous Liepāja joke: Riga gets everything, everyone else gets whatever's left. Good thing at least the tram runs indefinitely, otherwise we'd have to wonder if after 2050 we'll even be able to get from Karosta to downtown. "Well, there's no SEZ law, but there's also no port authority. So it's like a legal mess," explains Sesks, and this sentence sounds like a good title for some Liepāja rock band's album.

The biggest joke is that just as Stena Line came to Liepāja with their ferries and investments, now they get to enjoy uncertainty after 2050. As one local entrepreneur says: "We're planning port development here, but politicians in Riga think that by 2050 maybe we won't need ports at all. Or they think that by then everyone will have moved to Mars."

Finance Ministry representative Andis Kokenbergs, of course, refers to European Union requirements. Because, as we know, the best way to justify discrimination against regions is to blame Brussels. But somehow it's strange that these same requirements don't apply to Riga and Ventspils free ports. Do different EU rules apply there?