MOSCOW, January 27 (RAPSI) – Non-citizens are guaranteed all socioeconomic rights and are not discriminated against in Latvia, said the European Union’s Ambassador to Moscow Vygaudas Usackas.

The European diplomat said in an online interview organized by the Kommersant Publishing House that the number of non-citizens living in Latvia had greatly diminished in recent years. “Even if residents in Latvia are not citizens of the country, their socioeconomic rights are guaranteed and they are not discriminated against,” he said.

“The number of Russians who come to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, buy property or do business there grows every year,” Mr. Usackas said, adding that “people will hardly go where they feel unwelcome or uncomfortable.”

The EU ambassador has invited Russians to visit these Baltic countries so as “to become reacquainted with them, and to see that their citizens welcome Russians.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov previously said the EU was trying to justify the Baltic countries’ stance on non-citizens, contrary to the recommendations of the international organizations of which Estonia and Latvia are members.

Over 300,000 of Latvia's 2 million population are considered non-citizens, who are not allowed to vote in elections and referendums. Most these non-citizens are Russian speakers. Latvia maintains that it was illegally incorporated into the USSR in 1940 and then occupied by the Soviets until 1991, during which time hundreds of thousands of Russians immigrated into the republic.