Valdis Dombrovskis

Valdis Dombrovskis
Prime Minister of Latvia
Incumbent
Assumed office 12 March 2009
President	Valdis Zatlers Andris Bērziņš
Preceded by	Ivars Godmanis
Member of the European Parliament
In office 20 July 2004 – 11 March 2009
Succeeded by	Liene Liepiņa
Minister of Finance
In office 7 November 2002 – 9 March 2004
Preceded by	Gundars Bērziņš
Succeeded by	Oskars Spurdziņš
Personal details
Born	(1971-08-05) 5 August 1971 Riga, Soviet Union (now Latvia)
Political party	Unity (2011–present)
Other political affiliations	New Era Party (2002-2011)
Alma mater	University of Latvia Riga Technical University
Signature

Photo of Prime Minister of Latvia, Valdis Dombrovskis (left) and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Dr. Philip H. Gordon (right)

Valdis Dombrovskis (born 5 August 1971) is a Latvian politician who has been Prime Minister of Latvia since 2009. He served as Minister of Finance from 2002 to 2004 and was a Member of the European Parliament for the New Era Party.

Education and science career

Born in Riga to a family with Polish roots, Dombrovskis earned a bachelor's degree in economics for engineers from Riga Technical University in 1995 and a master's degree in physics from the University of Latvia in 1996. He worked as a laboratory assistant at the Institute of Physics of the University of Mainz in Mainz, Germany, from 1995 to 1996, as an assistant at the University of Latvia's Institute of Solid-State Physics in 1997, and as a research assistant at the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1998.

Political activity

Dombrovskis has been a Member of the Board of the New Era Party since 2002. He was Minister of Finance of Latvia from 2002 to 2004 and a Member of the Latvian Parliament during its 8th parliamentary term (2002–2004). Then he was Observer at the Council of the European Union (2003–2004).

As Member of the European Parliament, Dombrovskis was a member of three European Parliament Committees: Committee on Budgets, Delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly. He is also a Substitute at Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Committee on Budgetary Control and delegation to the EU-Kazakhstan, EU-Kyrgyzstan, and EU-Uzbekistan Parliamentary Cooperation Committees, and for relations with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Mongolia.

Dombrovskis was also one of six Members of the European Parliament participating in the European Union's observer mission in Togo for the October 2007 Togolese parliamentary election.

On 26 February 2009, following the resignation of Ivars Godmanis, President Valdis Zatlers nominated Dombrovskis to succeed Godmanis as Prime Minister. It was believed that his government would consist of three of the four previously governing parties (all but Godmanis' LPP/LC), his own New Era Party, and a smaller right-wing party (the Civic Union); the government was approved on 12 March 2009.

He is the longest-serving Prime Minister of Latvia.

See also

• First Dombrovskis cabinet
• Second Dombrovskis cabinet
• Third Dombrovskis cabinet

External links

• Personal website
• The Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Latvia

Political offices
Preceded by Ivars Godmanis	Prime Minister of Latvia 2009 – present	Incumbent