The prime minister has travelled the most among the ministers, but the ones who have gone the furthest are officials from the Ministry of Finance, the Minister of Agriculture, and an expert from the Ministry of Welfare. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence together have spent even slightly more than all the other ministries combined.
“How can it be that the Ministry of Climate and Energy (KEM) is ranked so high, when I haven’t been anywhere!?” The minister Kaspars Melnis is probably thinking something like this while sitting in his office. Together with his adviser, he spent two days in Vilnius, Lithuania, in February, taking part in a ceremony at which the three Baltic states joined the European electricity system. A total of 235 euros were spent on the minister’s and adviser’s business trip, and this was his only trip in the first quarter. Apart from the fact that the ministry he leads was artificially created without an obvious need, one could say that Melnis is frugal. He is frugal, but not his ministry. The 48 people working at KEM spent more than 33 thousand euros on business trips over three months, which is almost as much as the Ministry of Economics, where four times as many people are employed. And that is also three times more than has been spent by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which employs 6.5 times more people. The most expensive KEM business trip was a four-day trip to the assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Abu Dhabi, undertaken by a sector adviser who normally works at Latvia’s Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels. Another three sector advisers travelled on business trips from their workplace in Brussels to Latvia, for example, to meet with the minister, with other attachés, or to take part in an event organised by KEM.
It must be admitted that the most sensible use of money for business trips has been by the Ministry of Smart Administration and Regional Development (VARAM), which spent only 11.3 thousand euros on business trips over three months. When examining the report, there is not a single instance that raises suspicions that a trip might have been pointless – the vast majority of trips are almost mandatory, given membership in the European Union. The same can be said of the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Health.
Although the Ministry of Culture (KM) did not spend much in total on business trips in the 1st quarter – only 19 thousand euros – more than a quarter of this amount was spent on a single trip by the minister to the Oscars awards ceremony. In the rest of KM’s business trips, another pattern can be seen: the more expensive the trip, the less clear its usefulness. For example, one of KM’s most expensive business trips was a five-day trip to Paris to take part in the “18th Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions”, attended by two people. While paying for such a trip for the deputy state secretary for cultural policy issues might be justifiable, it is not really clear why the ministry should pay for such a trip for the minister’s freelance adviser.
Although the Cabinet guidelines in this area are unified, ministries have understood the task differently and have taken a creative approach to their new obligation to publish compilations of business trips: all indicate whether the funding source was budget resources, EU funds, or funding from the hosting party, but not in all cases is it specified what share of the total costs was covered from the budget. Some ministries, such as the Ministry of Finance, do not indicate at all those expenses that were not from state budget funds. Thus, it cannot be said that all the data are precisely comparable. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture appears to have taken first place (from the available data) in terms of expenditure on business trips, but the total figure also includes those trips that were paid for from sources other than the state budget. Nor can this sum be broken down, since the report does not specify whether, for example, EU funds covered all the trip’s costs, or only travel expenses, or only the hotel, and who paid the per diem. However, if the Ministry of Finance used the same approach, it would most likely overtake ZM in terms of expenditure. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the specific highlighted and interesting business trips rather than to the totals, as well as to the number of person-days spent on trips. The chart also provides an accurate overview of which ministries send civil servants on trips more often, which – the ministry’s leadership, i.e. state secretaries, and which – the ministers themselves. For example, in the Ministry of Education and Science the minister herself went on only one business trip in the 1st quarter, and the parliamentary secretary also on only one, yet the total business trip budget exceeds that of, for example, the Ministry of Economics.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent the most on business trips – 341.8 thousand euros, as did the Ministry of Defence – 226.7 thousand euros, of which almost 60 thousand were spent on trips by sector representatives abroad and on attachés. These two ministries together spent 568.5 thousand euros, which is 2% more than all the other ministries and the prime minister combined.
They are followed by the Ministry of Agriculture (ZM), where total business trip expenditure reached 94 thousand euros (including funding from other parties), of which just under 20% is attributable to the minister and his office staff. The ministry is also the leader in terms of person-days spent on trips – 351. Incidentally, that is one year, just “squeezed” into three months.
The most expensive and, apparently, the furthest of the business trips was a 10-day trip to Japan and South Korea. Four people from the ministry went there, with similar costs per person, and the trip cost a total of 17,319 euros, part of which was covered by the hosting party. The purpose of the trip – ensuring international cooperation. ZM explains that during the trip they visited the Foodex Japan 2025 exhibition and held meetings with a number of different people. At the same time, according to ZM’s comments, no specific contracts or memoranda of understanding were concluded – only new contacts were made. The full ZM response on the usefulness of the trip can be found here. It should be noted that Latvia’s exports to Japan in 2024 amounted to only 67 million euros, and the majority of this sum is wood exports. Food exports to Japan do not even reach one million euros, most likely because of differences in culture and eating habits. Things are not going well in the field of direct investment either – so far the Japanese have invested less than one million euros in Latvia, which makes the minister’s trip look more like tourism.
In terms of expenditure, the Ministry of Agriculture is followed by the Ministry of Finance (FM), which spent 89.5 thousand euros and 286 person-days on business trips. For example, FM’s sector adviser to the OECD spent 12 days on a business trip, most of them in Windhoek, Namibia (at FATF ICRG joint on-site meetings for the Africa and Europe/MENA regions), but in the depths of the internet, including on FATF’s own website, no information whatsoever can be found about such meetings – not even a calendar entry.
Meanwhile, in February an FM department director spent seven days on a business trip in Jakarta, Indonesia, participating in the annual meeting of deputy ministers of the Climate Policy Coalition, which cost just under 3,000 euros. Participants included representatives from Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, as well as Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Latvia. The organisers have not published a full list of participants.
After the Ministry of Finance, in terms of travel costs comes the State Chancellery, where almost half of the entire State Chancellery business trip budget was spent on the prime minister’s trips.
While the prime minister’s foreign trips seem in some sense logical, as they are part of her direct daily duties, the next ministry in terms of the largest business trip expenditures is surprising. It is the Ministry of Justice. The most expensive business trip at TM was… no, not for the minister, but for the minister’s press secretary, who went together with the minister to the USA in March to take part in the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, costing Latvian taxpayers 2,854 euros. Hopefully at least the minister is happy with the photos.
The second most expensive business trip at the Ministry of Justice, costing 2,585 euros and covered from “international project financial resources”, was a 12-day trip to Bangkok, Thailand, where a department director took part in an International Corrections and Prisons Association conference on women in the prison system and a conference on corrections service technologies. According to CSP data, there are 340 women in prisons in Latvia.
Given the objectives, one might think that somewhere here the Ministry of Economics should follow, but that is not the case. Next comes the Ministry of Education and Science. Judging by IZM business trips, which are mostly devoted to various experience-exchange visits, Latvia’s education system should be at world or at least European level. For example, the most expensive business trip for a single IZM employee covered from the state basic budget was a week-long trip to Italy, where a senior expert took part in a job shadowing event. Hopefully the shadowing experience was at least as beautiful as nearby Lake Como.
Another similar trip was a six-day trip to Brussels, where a senior expert took part in an inspectors’ meeting and an exchange of experience. In total, IZM employees went on 64 business trips in the first three months, spending 219 person-days on them. The minister herself went on only one trip, to Iceland, to the OECD International Summit on the Teaching Profession, and even there the hotel was paid for by the hosting party.
Although the number of employees at the Ministry of Economics (EM) is only 10% smaller than at the Ministry of Agriculture, EM employees, including the minister, have spent three times less time on business trips than their ZM colleagues, and spent 40% less money on them. Only one EM business trip was outside the European Union, and it was also the most expensive – the minister’s trip to Tel Aviv in Israel. As EM points out, the purpose of the trip was to strengthen economic cooperation between Latvia and Israel by promoting the export capacity of Latvian companies, attracting investment and facilitating technology transfer. “The visit was also special in diplomatic terms – it was the first visit to Israel by a foreign economy minister with a business delegation since the events in the region in 2023. Latvia’s presence in Israel at this time was perceived as an important sign of trust and a signal of Latvia’s interest in deepening economic dialogue,” notes EM Strategic Communication Expert at the Public Relations Department, Elīna Šakirova. She claims that the visit generated concrete, measurable benefits and long-term development potential for Latvia’s economy. Several important cooperation memoranda were signed, talks were initiated on investment projects in the energy, aviation, technology and defence sectors, and the first practical results were achieved – investment decisions and the entry of new companies into the Latvian market. The full EM comment can be found here. The ministry did not, however, specify particular measurable benefits, although, for example, Latvia’s exports to Israel have fallen by 35% over the last two years and currently do not even reach the level of exports to Japan. It is true that in the 1st quarter of this year, Israel’s direct investment in Latvia increased by 20 million euros.
The Ministry of the Interior spent about the same on business trips (32 thousand euros) as KEM and EM, with 105 person-days spent outside Latvia. None of the trips were outside the EU, and the minister himself went on only two trips. Next in terms of expenditure was the Ministry of Welfare (LM), which also spent 30 thousand euros on a total of 40 business trips. At the same time, LM sent a lead expert to New York, USA, to participate in the annual session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women – and this was the ministry’s most expensive business trip. LM Head of the Communications Department Aiga Isajeva points out that participation in this event was particularly important for Latvia’s election to the UN Security Council. “Usually Latvia is represented at this session at ministerial level. This year it was the Minister of Justice, Inese Lībiņa-Egnere. Given that coordination of gender equality issues falls under the responsibility of the Ministry of Welfare, the lead expert in this field provided substantive support for the Justice Minister’s participation in the session, as well as at other parallel events and bilateral meetings throughout the trip. Coordination of the participation of Latvia’s delegation in the session takes place in close cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Latvia’s representation to the UN,” the ministry notes. It is, however, interesting that a minister goes to such an event and has to bring along the “substantive support” of another ministry.
Originally published at https://inc-baltics.com/valstiskais-celotprieks-ministrijas-un-premjere-sogad-1-ceturksni-komandejumos-izterejusi-vairak-neka-miljonu-eiro/
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