Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis, Date of Birth, Place of Birth
TweetĢirts Valdis Kristovskis
Latvian politician
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Ventspils, Latvia
About Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis
- Girts Valdis Kristovskis (born 19 February 1962 in Ventspils) is a Latvian politician.
- He is a member of the centre-right Unity party. Kristovskis served in several previous Latvian governments as the Minister for the Interior from 3 August 1993 to 28 October 1994, when he resigned), and the Minister of the Defense from 26 November 1998 to 9 March 2004.
- He was elected to the Saeima in four subsequent elections since 1993, being a member of Latvian Way party in 1993–1998 and a member of For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK party in 1998–2008.
- At the 2004 European election he was elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK, but lost his mandate in the 2009 elections.
- Subsequently he was elected to the Riga City Council where he was the leader of the opposition. In 2008 he founded the centre right Civic Union party which became a founding member of the Unity coalition which won the largest mandate the 2010 Saeima elections.
- On 3 November 2010 Kristovskis became the Foreign Minister in the new Cabinet.
- In November, a scandal erupted in Latvia concerning the minister's correspondence with a doctor, who had expressed views perceived as Russophobic.
- Kristovskis survived the vote of non-confidence held on 9 November (36 deputies representing the opposition parties of the pro-Russian Harmony Center coalition and the right-wing For a Good Latvia voted for the proposal, with 51 deputies from the governing coalition voting against).
- Between 3 November 2010 and 25 October 2011 he served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Latvia.
- Kristovskis lost his seat in the Saeima as a result of the 2011 Latvian parliamentary election. He is a signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, and co-sponsored the European Parliament resolution of 2 April 2009 on European conscience and totalitarianism.
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