Reluctant Rapprochement

Russia and the Baltic States in the Context of NATO and EU Enlargements

FOI-R--0808--SE
February 2003
ISSN 1650-1942

Ingmar Oldberg

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Abstract
Throughout the 1990s Russia resisted the Baltic states’ striving for NATO membership by using military threats, political blackmail and economic pressure, but when this did not work, it reluctantly accepted the process. The improved relations with the USA and Europe after 11 September 2001, which resulted for example in a new NATORussia Council, saved Russian prestige and opened new vistas for Putin’s foreign policy.

Russia tried to use Estonian and Latvian border claims and minority problems as means to disqualify these states from NATO and EU membership, but this did not work since the states shelved the claims and adapted their minority legislation, which indeed was in Russia’s own interest.

As for economic relations, Russian pressure was met by the Baltic states reorienting their trade to the West and seeking EU membership. But Russia did not object to and in fact recommended Baltic EU membership as an alternative to NATO membership. After the August 1998 crisis, when economic recovery became a priority in Russian foreign policy, its own cooperation with the EU, especially in the energy sector, developed. EU enlargement also signified problems for Russia, notably regarding transit across Lithuania to Kaliningrad, but that problem was solved by a compromise before the Baltic states were invited to join the EU in December 2002.

Russian-Baltic relations have thus evolved from mutual estrangement in the early 1990s towards reluctant rapprochement under the aegis of all-European integration, and economic interests have come to the forefront.