Latvians to join EU; party quits ruling coalition

RIGA, Latvia — Latvians voted overwhelmingly Saturday to join the European Union, according to early election results, but the government was thrown into turmoil when one party bolted the ruling coalition.

Latvia First said it would withdraw from the government's four-party coalition over an unrelated dispute with Prime Minister Einars Repse. The move was not expected to affect the country's entrance into the EU.

With more than 80 percent of the country's 1,006 polling districts reporting by early today, 69.5 percent voted in favor, while 29.8 percent voted no, the Central Election Commission reported.

Repse celebrated the referendum's success before about 2,000 cheering young people at an old town square in the capital, Riga.

"Latvians understand this is a decisive moment!" Repse said from a stage below a banner reading "Welcome Europe!"

"You people will have a big role to play in the EU. Take advantage of it."

Repse appeared unaffected by what appeared to be the collapse of his coalition. Guntars Krasts, from one of the ruling parties, Fatherland and Freedom, said Latvia First pulled out because the party was not happy with his leadership.

Repse is seen as a financial whiz but has also been criticized as heavy-handed and uncommunicative.

Repse suggested he was willing to continue with just three parties — but left open the possibility that he might try to work out the differences.

Latvia's government and the business community strongly backed EU entry, touting it as a way to ensure the political and economic stability of the Baltic Sea state, which regained independence from Moscow in the 1991 Soviet collapse.

But critics contended membership will result in higher prices and uncertainty, warning that the country would be accountable to another faraway capital, the EU headquarters in Brussels, as it was under Soviet rule to Moscow. Latvia is also slated to join NATO next year.

That, combined with being part of the EU, is expected to give the country the upper hand — for the first time in its history — in dealing with Russia, said Atis Lejins, head of the Latvian Institute for International Affairs.

Russia "will have to realize they've lost us forever," Lejins said. "We will be part of the bigger EU-Russia relations and, since the EU is bigger and more powerful, it is a different story all of a sudden."