It's a very topical and good question, particularly because we are now facing the European Parliament elections. Again, there is a fear that populism will be boosted even more, particularly in spreading these fears and phobias, across the European continent.
Talking about Latvia in particular, Latvia is committed, as any other country in the world, to the UN refugee convention. If there is an individual who is in need of international protection, we will grant it to them, there is no question about it.
Another question, of course, is this: What is happening within Europe on irregular migration? That is an area where, yes, there are different attitudes among the politicians. We have certain different policies being persuaded within Europe on this automatic relocation of asylum seekers, immigrants who a lot of member states are opposing. Latvia is among those countries as well. That is connected with EU agreements and treaties. There are certain competencies that are in the hands of EU institutions. There are certain competencies, exclusive competencies, for member states. Immigration is an exclusive member state competence. Therefore, the ongoing political mantling that has been happening in Europe since 2014, when Europe was severely hit by a migrant influx, is still there. If we talk about populism in Latvia, it's slightly different from the populism in the rest of Western Europe. It's a classical populism. It's populism on who's going to promise more. You're going to have a much higher pension, a much higher minimum salary and so on, even though they have no financial backing on that, on their promises and so on. In that regard, there is a populism in Latvia.
Overall, yes, I have to say the society in Latvia is very conservative. The majority of the society is really conservative, with conservative views. As I stated at the beginning, we're not against refugees and none of the politicians are. I haven't seen a politician in Latvia opposing that. Yes, it might come out in the news, there might be headlines opposing the migrants coming from North Africa or the Middle East and so on. Yes, it's because, again, we have to scrutinize it through the EU policies that are in place. We have the Dublin regulation and we an external border. There are certain duties the member states have to conduct if they have the EU external border. These include guarding it, assessing all the individuals who are coming in, scrutinizing and so on.
This said, the core value for the EU is the solidarity, there's no doubt about that. In this way, as well, solidarity doesn't mean just the one thing, replacement of individuals across member states. Solidarity can be shown by giving technical assistance, human resources—