| E.U. pulls the plug on its Eastern members Hello! As surprising as it may seem, not a single international organization (as well as not a single European organization) like the U.N., the E.U., the Council of Europe, or the WTO doesn't give a damn for problems of Russian-speaking people who live in the Baltic States. Actually, there is in fact only one problem that these people do have to face - that's disregard of rights and discrimination of national Russian-speaking minorities by governments of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. However, as far as world organizations are deliberately turning back on problems of Russian minorities, this can affect economic circumstances of the Baltic States themselves. That's how it happens. As things go now, Russia cannot rely on assistance of international organizations any more and is forced to deal with her problems in her own way - by means of economic sanctions against Baltic States. As a result of that, after economic sanctions were applied to Estonia as a sequence to the Bronze Night (demolition and relocation of the Bronze Soldier monument in Tallinn), the losses of Estonia reached a considerable figure of €436 million, which is only a beginning! It is obvious that at this rate Estonia will become beggar quite shortly. But the question is still open - why the E.U. does not try to interfere? I think that the answer is quite obvious - such state of things suits them down to the ground. Western European countries do not want Baltic States to be economically successful as they are qualified as competitors. In fact, Western Europe wants to have a long-smoldering conflict there between Russia and the Baltic States. Now we should take it for granted that joining the E.U. does not stand for a panacea for all woes of new member states, vice versa, it causes even greater problems. |