This corner of the European Union is an exception to the economic doom and gloom crippling other parts of the eurozone. The three Baltic nations, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, look at their southern European partners now struggling with cutbacks and think, “we’ve seen worse.” According to an old Estonian pledge: eat potato peelings if you must and just get it done.
They did. This past weekend, luminaries gathered in Tallinn to celebrate the Baltic states’ declaration of independence from the Soviet Union 20 years ago..
“I remember the days when the counters of the shops in Tallinn were empty and the people were starving. The economy more or less had to be rebuilt from scratch,” recalled Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, a longtime Baltic supporter. If you had asked people on Aug. 20, 1991 whether in 20 years “Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would be seen as economic success stories in Europe, would be full members of NATO, full members of the European Union,” Blidt asked, “if anyone had said yes, that person would have been seen as a fairly likely candidate for lunacy.”
Baltic Economy | Estonia | Latvia | Lithuania | Former Soviet Union
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