RIGA, 25 August 2003 — The Baltic state of Latvia takes its European Union membership referendum campaign into people’s homes today, with the launch of a new Reality television series aimed at showing what life in the bloc is really like.
The Swedish TV3 owned TV3 television channel sent eight Latvians from different walks of life to live in an EU country for two days, and plans to show snapshots of their lives, mixed with discussions, in its “Witness” program, which will run every Monday until referendum day on Sept. 20.
Ramona Umblija, the head of the Latvian government’s EU information campaign which partly funded the series, said the eight had been chosen because polls had shown them to come from the most undecided groups of society.
The TV guinea pigs are a waiter, a German language teacher at a Russian school, a farmer, an agriculturalist, two pensioners and two “new” businessmen.
They were packed off to EU countries which were seen as having something in common with Latvia, a former Soviet republic of 2.4 million people. They were given one day to experience a working environment, and the second to relax.
Austria was chosen because it was one of the last countries to join the EU. Luxembourg and Belgium because, like Latvia, they are small countries. And Denmark because its farm sector is similar to Latvia’s.
Janis Sala, one of the farmers, lived for two days in Denmark, in what he said what was his first visit to an EU member country.
“I liked there very much, but I would not like to live there. The prices are too high,” he told a news conference before the launch of the program, which will be repeated on Thursdays and Saturdays to ensure maximum exposure.
He said that he would vote in favor of joining the EU in the September 20 referendum -- the last in a series of plebiscites in the EU’s 10 future members.
But he said he feared many farmers in the agriculturally-intensive country would not.
“I myself was for the EU and still am for the EU. We are going to join the rich, not the poor neighbor,” he said.
“For the small ones, who grow potatoes, there is fear,” he said, saying they are afraid that “they will not be able to stand competition”.
“They do not know standards and are afraid of anything new,” thinks Sala.
Juris Grave, who dreamt up the show, said some of the witnesses, including a businessman in eco-tourism, returned from their stay as Euroskeptics.
Eriks Niedra, one of the producers and also host of the show said he hoped the program would inform people before the referendum. “There are answers, maybe not always direct, on all concerns,” he said.
Only Latvia, and its Baltic ex-Soviet neighbor Estonia on Sept. 14 still have to stage referendums on EU membership, and polls have shown them to be amongst the most Eurosceptical of the EU’s future members.
Seven countries have already voted in favor of membership, while Cyprus did not hold a plebiscite. The latest poll released at the beginning of August showed the number of people backing the EU in Latvia decreased in July, with 52.3 percent in favor, 31.7 percent against, and 16.1 percent saying they did not know what to vote.
While other polls have shown different figures, they have confirmed the same trend.
