Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš

At 59 years old, Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš physical status not available right now. We will update Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

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

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.

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.

Upon assuming the prime ministership, Aleksejs Loskutovs took his seat in European Parliament.

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 was elected 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 Bordans 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. 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 the 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.

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

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.

Source