Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš (; born 13 December 1964) is a Latvian and American politician who served as the prime minister of Latvia from 2019 until 2023. A linguist and businessman by profession, he previously served as Latvia's minister of Economics and a Member of the European Parliament. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, United States, to parents who had left Latvia during the Soviet occupation, he was active in the American Latvian community throughout his youth.

After graduating with a bachelor's degree summa cum laude and PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania, Kariņš moved to Latvia in 1997 and founded a frozen food business. He helped found the New Era Party in 2002, which in 2011 merged with others to form the Unity Party (renamed New Unity in 2018). After serving as a deputy in Latvia's parliament (the Saeima), as Minister of Economics, and also as a Member of the European Parliament throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Kariņš was selected by New Unity to be its prime ministerial candidate in the 2018 Latvian parliamentary election. Following the election, New Unity was the smallest party elected to the 13th Saeima.

Following months of contentious negotiations in which leaders of the larger parties were unable to form a coalition, Kariņš was nominated by President Raimonds Vējonis in January 2019 as a compromise candidate to form a government. He took office on 23 January 2019 at the head of a five-party coalition, and survived a 58–33 vote of no confidence on 11 April 2019. During his tenure, he led the country's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the 2021 Belarus–European Union border crisis.

He announced his resignation as prime minister on 14 August 2023 due to conflicts within the coalition led by his party and left office upon election of his successor on 15 September 2023.

Early life Kariņš was born in Wilmington, Delaware, United States, to a Latvian American family. As child refugees, his parents, with their respective families, fled the Soviet re-occupation of Latvia in 1944, grew up, met and married in Sweden before migrating to the United States. His father, Uldis, was a civil engineer who in 1973 founded the engineering, planning and surveying firm Karins and Associates in Delaware, which would later go on to acquire other companies in the Mid-Atlantic region.

According to Kariņš, he and his older sister were the only two ethnic Latvian children in their elementary school. His family was active in Delaware's Latvian community, regularly attending Latvian church and Sunday school, singing in Latvian choirs, and attending and later working at Latvian summer camps including Garezers in Michigan. Throughout his youth, Kariņš played guitar and drums with his Latvian friends in a band that traveled throughout the United States and played at events such as weddings. He also took part in demonstrations in Washington, D.C., against the Soviet occupation. Kariņš first visited Latvia in 1984 and he spent summers there until moving to the country full-time in 1997.

Education and business career After graduating from high school, Kariņš studied at the Münster Latvian Gymnasium in 1983. One of his teachers was Egils Levits, who was elected President of Latvia in 2019 a few months after Kariņš would become prime minister. From 1984 to 1986, he studied at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, before switching to a linguistics program at the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated summa cum laude in 1988. In 1990, he received a grant from the American government to take Russian language classes in Leningrad, and in 1994, he received another government scholarship to study pitch accents and to teach sociolinguistics courses as a guest lecturer at the University of Latvia. In 1996, Kariņš finished a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania and specialized in the field of automatic speech recognition.

Soon after, he moved to Latvia, where he intended on teaching language but was denied a teaching position as an academic due to inexperience in teaching. Instead, he founded Lāču ledus, a producer and distributor of ice and frozen foods, that he led until 2002. According to Kariņš, negative experiences working with the Latvian bureaucracy during his time in business was his original inspiration for joining Latvian politics. He was also briefly the president of an automobile and office supplies company called Formula from 1999 to 2000.

Political career

New Era Party, Saeima deputy and Minister for Economics

In the early 2000s, Einars Repše invited Kariņš to take part in the founding of the New Era Party, and Kariņš helped write the party's original platform. He was elected to the Saeima on the party's ticket in October 2002, with New Era becoming the single largest party in parliament. While in the Saeima, he served on the education, culture, and science committee as well as on the constitutional committee. He also served as the chairman of the parliamentary faction of New Era from 2002 to 2004.

Upon the resignation of prime minister Einars Repše in early 2004, Kariņš was discussed as a candidate to become the next prime minister. However, he was passed over by President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga in favor of Indulis Emsis, and again in favor of Aigars Kalvitīs after Emsis's resignation a few months later. He instead became Minister for Economics in the First Kalvītis cabinet from December 2004 to April 2006. According to Kariņš, he had a contentious relationship with Kalvītis during his time as minister. In April 2006, Kariņš was threatened with prosecution due to his relationship with a company that allegedly misused EU funds. Although Kariņš initially refused to resign, his entire New Era party left the government on 6 April 2006 due to an ongoing conflict with Kalvītis and his People's Party.

Kariņš was re-elected to the Saeima on 7 October 2006. Although New Era was tied for the second largest party in parliament with 18 seats, the party did not re-join Kalvītis's coalition and remained in opposition. In March 2007 Kariņš became one of two co-leaders of New Era together with Repše. When New Era voted to merge with the Unity party in July 2011, Kariņš became a member of Unity. In July 2017, he criticized five members of parliament who left Unity for the new For! party as being primarily motivated by their re-election prospects, and indicated that he would not be leaving the party as his "values had not changed." He remained a member when the party was renamed "New Unity" in April 2018.

Member of European Parliament

In July 2009, Kariņš became a Member of European Parliament. He was a Member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, substitute in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and was a substitute in the Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect. In the Parliament he was part of the European People's Party, the largest political grouping the parliament. He was also a member of the Reconciliation of European Histories Group. Kariņš was re-elected at the 2014 European Parliament election.

In a May 2015 interview, Kariņš argued in favor of Latvia accepting its controversial quota of refugees proposed by the European Union in order to alleviate the European migrant crisis, saying that in the future Latvia would expect help from other EU countries in settling Ukrainian migrants from a potential major crisis.

When Kariņš assumed the prime ministership, Aleksejs Loskutovs took his seat in European Parliament.

Committee assignments

Industry, Research and Energy Committee of Inquiry into Emission Measurements in the Automotive Sector Special committee on financial crimes, tax evasion and tax avoidance

2018 candidacy for Prime Minister On 23 April 2018, Kariņš was announced as New Unity's candidate for the Latvian premiership for the 2018 election. He decided not to run for election to the Saeima, instead choosing to maintain his seat in the European Parliament. In announcing his candidacy, he criticized the Kučinskis government as "foolish," even though five of the thirteen ministers were fellow members of New Unity. Despite polls predicting as late as July that New Unity would not receive the minimum 5% share of the vote necessary for election to the Saeima, the party was able to stage a comeback and on 6 October it entered the Saeima as the smallest of seven parties, with just eight seats.

On 7 January 2019, he was tasked by Latvian President Raimonds Vējonis with forming the next government, following the failures of previous nominees Jānis Bordāns and Aldis Gobzems in a contentious negotiation process. In accepting the nomination, Kariņš announced that his government's priorities would include financial sector reform, education reform, anti-corruption action, and liquidation of a controversial green energy surcharge that had been abused by companies in previous years. The mayor of Ventspils, Aivars Lembergs, called on Kariņš, a dual citizen of both the United States and Latvia, to give up his American citizenship while prime minister, but he refused to do so.

Kariņš took office as prime minister on 23 January 2019, leading a broad centre-right coalition of five conservative and liberal parties that includes KPV LV, New Conservative Party, Development/For!, National Alliance and New Unity. The Union of Greens and Farmers and Harmony parties went into opposition, as did independent Member of Parliament Jūlija Stepaņenko.

2019 European elections Kariņš led his party into the 2019 European Parliament elections in Latvia. His party lost half of their seats, going to 2 from 4.

2022 candidacy for Prime Minister In June 2022, the New Unity party announced that Kariņš would once again serve as their candidate for prime minister. On September 9, the Latvian Association of Journalists criticized Kariņš for not participating in public debates and being overly selective for which interview programs he appeared on.

Prime minister

During his confirmation session, Kariņš promised that his government would be "evolutionary, not revolutionary”, and announced a seven-point program that prioritized financial sector reform, implementing anti-corruption measures, continuing the Kučinskis government's education reforms, improving but not overhauling the health care system, eliminating the controversial green energy subsidy, reducing the number of administrative divisions, and addressing "demographic issues." On 5 April 2019, he supported Minister of Environmental Protection and Regional Development Juris Pūce's action in dismissing long-serving Mayor of Riga Nils Ušakovs from his position due to multiple violations of the law.

Domestic policy

Financial sector reform On 13 June 2019, the Saeima approved measures that allowed Latvian institutions to implement UN sanctions more quickly, reduced the Financial and Capital Market Commission from five members to just three, and made these commissioners' positions subject to appointment by parliament. Commission chairman Peters Putniņš protested that the measures would allow politicians to have greater control of what should be a non-political regulatory body.

Education Upon his confirmation, Kariņš announced that his government would continue implementing reforms that had been planned by the previous government led by Māris Kučinskis. These included the reorganization and liquidation of schools that had low numbers of students, the gradual transition to Latvian-only education in public high schools, and new competence-based curriculum standards.