Jānis Reirs

Jānis Reirs (born 23 September 1961 in Riga) is a Latvian politician who served as Minister of Finance in the first Kariņš cabinet from 2019 until 2022, as well as Minister for Welfare in the Kučinskis cabinet from 2016 until 2019 and Minister of Finance in the second Straujuma cabinet.

Career As a student, Jānis Reirs was an active Communist Youth activist, ready to climb the ladder of a Communist career. At a time when the progressive part of the Latvian population was founding organisations for the restoration of independence, Janis Reirs defended and praised the ideals of communism.

Reirs was a Member of the Board of Trasta komercbanka PLC from 1996 to 1999.

Together with Einars Repše, who later served as the Prime minister of Latvia from 2002 until 2004, Reirs was one of the founders of the New Era Party in 2002, which merged into the centre-right grouping Unity in 2010.

He is mentioned in the so-called builders' cartel criminal case, although he denies any involvement. The case was dropped in 2021.

Reirs participated in the 2022 Latvian parliamentary election under the New Unity list, but did not receive enough votes to make it into the Saeima.

Other activities European Union organizations European Investment Bank (EIB), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (since 2019) European Stability Mechanism (ESM), Member of the Board of Governors (since 2019) Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), World Bank Group, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (since 2019) Nordic Investment Bank (NIB), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors World Bank, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (since 2019)