An interview with Jānis Endziņš, one of the founders of the LaSER think tank, has been published on the jauns.lv portal. Endziņš currently leads the working group established by the Prime Minister to reduce bureaucracy. The interview discusses the challenges of reducing bureaucracy and practical steps for decreasing administrative burden in Latvia. Jānis Endziņš emphasises that excessive bureaucracy not only hinders entrepreneurship, investment, and development, but also creates an environment where corruption risks increase.
The discussion highlights both short-term and long-term priorities — implementing specific simplification measures while introducing systemic solutions to prevent the further growth of bureaucratic burden. Particular emphasis is placed on the need for transparent measurements of administrative burden and approaches that allow society and decision-makers to understand the costs of regulatory requirements in monetary terms.
Reducing bureaucracy is an essential prerequisite for national competitiveness, and this issue has been a particular focus of LaSER’s research work this year. In the policy report Without Disruption, There Is No Result: Reforming Latvia’s Public Administration, the authors analyse Latvia’s public administration in comparison with other Baltic and European Union countries, with particular attention to administrative burden as one of the factors limiting national competitiveness and business development. The study examines the size of the public administration, remuneration structures, and processes of bureaucratisation, as well as the role of public administration in Latvia’s development.
In addition, this year LaSER published the policy brief Less Is More: Debureaucratisation Around the World and in Latvia, which summarises international experience and best practices in reducing bureaucracy. The brief analyses key steps towards a thoughtful and systematic debureaucratisation process in both the short and long term, offering practical recommendations that can be adapted to the Latvian context.
The full interview with Jānis Endziņš can be read on the jauns.lv portal.
Photo: Zane Bitere/LETA