Andris Šuvajevs European Sovereignty Commentary on the Findings of the Survey in Latvia THE POLITICS OF LATVIA’S SOVEREIGNTY For people in Latvia, the word‘sovereignty’ is an overall posi­tive and modern term which connotes power, independence and freedom. It is a word whose relevance and purchase stretches beyond particular political positions and may very well be embraced by opposing factions. National sovereignty is regarded as a historical achievement, a moment of deep significance in the cultural memory of the nation, encapsulat­ed in the Constitution of the country which is indeed seen as a sacred document. Since sovereignty is not something taken for granted, it is seen as something to be closely guarded from undue influences. As the country was occupied by the Soviet Union for 50 years, Latvia’s sovereignty is considered never to be final. The perceived fragility of political independence of the Latvi­an nation has had notable consequences on domestic and foreign policy. Domestically, the sovereignty of the country has produced division along ethnic lines. Since the basis of the state is the Latvian nation and the nation is conceptual­ised culturally, belonging to the state is marked through lin­guistic and historic signs. When Latvia’s independence was re­stored in the early 1990s, the citizenship policy was explicitly formulated on the basis of descent rather than territory.‘The people’ of Latvia – as the source of sovereignty- were consti­tuted on a fairly exclusionary basis: citizenship was granted to those who had been citizens of Latvia as well as descendants of such citizens before 1941. In effect, this meant that a sig­nificant segment of the population that had arrived in Latvia during the occupation of the Soviet Union were not granted rights that pertained to citizens even though many had ex­pressed equal support to the independence of Latvia. Mean­while, citizenship was automatically granted to the descend­ants of refugees now living abroad even if they had never been to Latvia. These political decisions contrast sharply with the citizenship policy pursued after World War I, when all res­idents of the new country – regardless of their ethnicity – were granted the opportunity to claim citizenship. The issue of citizenship in the early 1990s reflected an anxiety regard­ing the composition of the population which had changed significantly during the Soviet regime. The internal migration fostered by the Soviet Union during the occupation years had reduced the share of Latvians in the entire population to just 52% whereas in 1920 the share had been nearly 73%. Due to this political anxiety regarding the existential threat faced by the Latvian nation, the very nature and core of sovereignty in Latvia has been bound to produce domestic division and social fragmentation. Sovereignty is seen the prerogative of the Latvian nation defined in cultural terms. Conceived as independence, sovereignty in the national con­text is thus, first and foremost, the ability to lead a political life without any interventions from others except if such interven­tions have been validated nationally. The ability to live in ac­cordance with one’s values, defined as democracy and the rule of law, but also articulated in national-cultural terms, is a sec­ondary but still important aspect of sovereignty. Unlike post-imperial countries like France, Spain and Italy, the power to assert one’s interests is considered a lesser feature of sover-