Jānis Reirs


Jānis Reirs is a Latvian politician who has been serving as Minister of Finance in the government of Prime Minister Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš since 2019. He previously serves as Minister for Welfare in the Kučinskis cabinet from 2016 to 2019 and Minister for Finance in the second Straujuma cabinet.

Education

Reirs holds a master's degree in Economics from the University of Latvia.

Career

Prior to entering politics, Reirs was a Member of the Board of Trasta komercbanka PLC from 1996 to 1999. He chaired the board of JSC Spodrïba, a Latvian producer of detergents and maintenance products. He was also a partner at Prudentia, one of Latvia's largest investment banks.
Together with Einars Repše, who later served as Latvia's prime minister from 2002 until 2004, Reirs was one of the founders in 2002 of New Era, which in 2010 merged into the centre-right grouping Unity.
Reirs became a member of the Latvian Parliament in the 2002 national elections and later served as Minister for Information society from 2004 until 2006. From 2010 until 2014 he chaired the Budget Committee.
In 2019, Reirs joined forces with his counterparts of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands in pushing for the establishment of new EU supervisory authority that would take over from states the oversight of money laundering at financial firms.

Other activities

European Union organizations