Bikers in mass picket outside Latvian parliament

Nov 30, 2009, 13:04 GMT

   Riga - A thousand leather-jacketed bikers surrounded the Latvian parliament building Monday in a protest against a proposed hike in road taxes for motorcycles.

   Bikers' chapters from across the Baltic state, including the Free Hawks, Lucifers and Brothers Of The Wind, met in the Latvian capital on their gleaming machines before assembling outside parliament and jeering politicians preparing for a crucial budget vote.

   They presented Transport Minister Kaspars Gerhards with a gold- painted motorcycle to express their opposition to government plans to increase annual road tax on motorcycles from 3 lats (5 euros) to 24 lats (34 euros).

   One biker, who went by the name of Ingus, from Riga told the German Press Agency dpa he was unhappy with the fact the proposals had not been the subject of consultation and that they affect all types of motorcycles equally.    'This is unfair to everybody. I own a small Aprillia motorcycle weighing 150 kilos - but I am compared to a car weighing more than one and a half tonnes. If you tax motorcycles on the basis that they are a luxury item, then why not tax skis or snowboards?' he said.

   'We don't sit in traffic causing pollution. We have lower emissions and are greener than cars,' he added.

   Another biker, Oskars, said opposition to the tax proposals had had one positive effect.

   'There are lots of different motoring and biking groups across Latvia that have never talked to each other. This government has managed to unite us and make us form an association in less than five days!' he said.

   Latvian lawmakers will debate and vote on a make-or-break 2010 budget Tuesday, with the future of the country's 7.5-billion-euro (11-billion-dollar) international bail-out package at stake.