The education reform that is now being pushed forward by Latvian authorities totally ignores the interests of Russian-language schools, so the OSCE must urgently step in to prevent further aggravation of social tension in that former Soviet republic, Mr. Alexeyev was quoted as saying at a session of the organization's Standing Council on Monday.
The Russian envoy to the OSCE reportedly qualified the Latvian government's education policies as an infringe on ethnic minorities' recognized right to choose their language of education. According to him, teachers and students of Russian-language schools took to the streets of the Latvian capital of Riga the other day to protest against the reform.
"In our view, all this is too far from the notion of integration, as well as from the democratic standards underlying the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE," Mr. Alexeyev pointed out.