... they simply could not increase cooperation with China because doing so would mean involving Russia in some capacity or other (particularly within the “One Belt One Road” project), and confrontation with Moscow is a central tenet of the Estonia, Latvian and Lithuania strategies. The fallout of the decision to back away from cooperation with China is that the Baltic states will not be able to revive their economies through cooperation with that country, or with any of the rapidly growing markets in the east for that matter.
Demographics. Recognising a Disaster
Over the past three years, all three Baltic states ...
... close electrical and gas bonds with Russia.
Infrastructure (transport, gas, electricity and so on) is the last sphere Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have failed to completely integrate into Europe over the past 25 post-Soviet years.
REUTERS/Gerard Julien
... ... make their countries part of the EU “energy mainland.”
At the end of the day the efforts of the leaders of the Baltic states to resolve the current situation are driven by political phobias. On the one hand the Baltic establishment is convinced ...
... from Russia under slogans of
democratization
and
European integration
.
However, the Baltic elites’ political win-win situation is overshadowed by losses caused by sanctions (and in his June interview, mayor of Riga Nil Ushakov said that “Latvia and other Baltic states have been hit hardest by the crisis and
sanctions war
”), the drop in eastbound exports, the commitments to raise defense spending to two-percent at the expense of social programs, and the frontline role in view of a potential armed ...
