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Euroscepticism in the Baltic States: Uncovering Issues, People and Stereotypes” Explores the Neglected Issue of Euroscepticism in the Baltic Societies

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Euroscepticism in the Baltic States: Uncovering Issues, People and Stereotypes” Explores the Neglected Issue of Euroscepticism in the Baltic Societies LATVIAN INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS / FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG RĪGA, 2017 The book “Euroscepticism in the Baltic States: Uncovering Issues, People and Stereotypes” explores the neglected issue of Euroscepticism in the Baltic societies. The book consists of a collection of articles from experts in economics, politics and sociology, as well as Eurosceptic politicians. Authors from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia seek to unveil not only the development of criticism towards the European Union in the Baltic politics over the last twenty-five years, but also sceptical opinions among the Baltic entrepreneurs and the sociological profile of Baltic population, looking separately at the Russian-speaking population in Estonia and Latvia. This book is the most recent successful collaboration between the Latvian Institute of International Affairs and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. The opinions expressed here are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Latvian Institute of International Affairs or the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung or represent the opinion of any government authority or ministry. Project director: Aldis Austers Scientific editors: Aldis Austers, Kārlis Bukovskis Authors: Gints Apals, Aldis Austers, Kārlis Bukovskis, Solvita Denisa-Liepniece, Normunds Grostiņš, Didzis Meļķis, Jurijs Ņikišins, Illimar Ploom, Vytautas Radžvilas, Gediminas Vitkus, Viljar Veebel, Ingrida Unikaitė-Jakuntavičienė. English language editor: Nicholas Archdeacon Cover design: Kristīne Plūksna-Zvagule Layout: Oskars Stalidzāns The book is published in collaboration with the Publishers Zinātne © Authors of the articles, 2017 © Cover design: ISBN 978-9934-567-06-3 Kristīne Plūksna-Zvagule, 2017 UDK 32(474) © Latvian Institute of International Affairs, Eu600 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Is Euroscepticism in the Baltic States Much Ado About Nothing? Kārlis Bukovskis and Aldis Austers .............................7 PART I: THE POLITICS AND ECONOMICS OF EUROSCEPTICISM IN BALTICS Euroscepticism in Latvian Politics: Twenty-Five Years of Change Gints Apals ................................................15 Small Is Small: Euroscepticism in Lithuanian Politics Gediminas Vitkus ..........................................38 Emulated Euroscepticism in Estonian Politics Illimar Ploom and Viljar Veebel ...............................51 A Case of Euroscepticism: Russian Speakers in Latvian and Estonian Politics Solvita Denisa-Liepniece ....................................69 Between Eurocriticism and Eurorealism in Latvian Economy Didzis Meļķis ............................................. 88 The Invisible Economic Dimension of Euroscepticism in Lithuania Ingrida Unikaitė-Jakuntavičienė .............................101 Pragmatic Economic Euroscepticism in Estonia Viljar Veebel ..............................................113 The Eurocritical Republic of Latvia Normunds Grostiņš . .123 European Union at a Crossroad: Reform or Failure? Vytautas Radžvilas ........................................134 PART II: THE SOCIOLOGY OF EUROSCEPTICISM IN THE BALTIC STATES Aldis Austers and Jurijs Ņikišins General Trends and Sociodemographic Profiling of EU Oppositionists in the Baltic States ..........................149 Deciphering People and Stereotypes .......................164 Uncovering the Diverse Expressions of Euroscepticism .......178 Euroscepticism and the Russian-Speaking Population of Latvia and Estonia ...........................195 Conclusions on Euroscepticism in the Baltic States: No Reason to Panic – Yet Aldis Austers ............................................ 208 ABOUT THE AUTHORS ....................................237 INTRODUCTION: IS EUROSCEPTICISM IN BALTIC STATES MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING? Kārlis Bukovskis and Aldis Austers Euroscepticism is not a modern phenomenon in Western political discourse. Critical and even anti-European Union attitudes based in sovereignism and anti-globalism have been around for many decades. The rapid federalisation of the European Union (EU)since the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, as well as the more than doubling of the number of member states since the end of the Cold War facilitated not only enthusiasm toward the future of the project, but also its natural opposition in the form of Euroscepticism. The increasing legal, institutional and political complexity of the European project, combined with the hard-hitting economic recession, migration within and into the EU, and consequent emergence of neo- integrovernmentalist and neo-conservativist attitudes have facilitated Eurosceptical populist politicians gaining momentum in the last few years in many EU countries. Even EU countries with traditionally underdeveloped political opposition towards the EU have seen an activation of Eurosceptic politicians and sentiments in the population. Here, the Baltic states serve as a visible example. Euroscepticism has been a traditionally marginalised issue in parliamentary and ministerial politics in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania due to the lack of geopolitical alternatives in increasingly globalised world. Ideas about an exit from the European Union in the Baltic countries have not gained widespread societal support and a low number of political activists can be categorised as anti-EU. The very Euroscepticism phenomenon is fairly weak in small EU countries due to pragmatic economic, calculative geopolitical or hopeful modernisation reasoning. Nevertheless, critical voices towards the EU have existed in 7 society, and also continue their presence in these three small states in Northern Europe. The general, national stances towards the EU and situations with Euroscepticism were analysed in 2016 book “Euroscepticism in Small EU Member States,” while this 2017 book “Euroscepticism in the Baltic Countries: Uncovering Issues, People and Stereotypes” delves into discovering the trends, reasons and arguments for critical attitudes towards the EU using the Baltic states as subject of analysis. The book consists of a collection of articles in which authors from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia seek to unveil not only the development of criticism towards the European Union in the Baltic politics over the last twenty-five years, but also sceptical opinions among Baltic entrepreneurs and the sociodemographic profile of Eurosceptics in the Baltic population, separately looking at the Russian-speaking population in Estonia and Latvia. The research problem of this book is linked to several apparent paradoxes in the Baltic states: • On the one hand, the Baltic states, being relatively poor, geographically remote and highly dependent on international security guarantees, stand out as major benefiters from the EU and, for this reason, should be the most enthusiastic about the European integration. However, the three countries, but particularly Latvia and Estonia, continuously exhibit disproportionally low levels of popular support for EU membership. • On the other hand, despite the inadequately low societal support for European integration, none of the Baltic states has a manifest Eurosceptic or anti-European movement or political party, and Euroscepticism has been limited to a few marginal figures. Therefore, the aim of the book is to reveal the content, breadth and depth of Eurosceptic views in the Baltic countries and to provide an explanation to observable trends. This should help to estimate the political resilience of Baltic societies against the growing tide of Euroscepticism in the EU and to suggest directions for future policy action. To address this aim, the authors of the book concentrated on two major tasks: the identification of major agents or groups of agents 8 holding Eurosceptic views, including instruments and tactics of these actors; and the identification of the origins and driving forces behind Eurosceptic perceptions in politics, economics and societies. And, although the authors of the chapters were encouraged to uncover the most adequate terminology capturing the people’s feelings about the EU, generally this book follows the logic that the term Euroscepticism is understood to imply negative attitude held towards the EU. Namely, Euroscepticism is “a term used to describe the strongly critical or even nihilistic attitude towards the European project.”1 The book consists of two parts. The first part addresses the political and economic aspects of the phenomenon of Euroscepticism in the Baltic countries. The book starts with Gints Apals addressing the evolution of Eurosceptic attitudes in Latvia since the early 1990s and warns that “the alienation of ordinary citizens from the actual EU agenda may adversely affect public support for decisions on the future of Europe and the reform of the EU,” resulting in increasing number of politicians oriented towards Euroscepticism in Latvia. The second article, by Gediminas Vitkus, looks at Lithuania’s political arena in the context of Euroscepticism and, among others, draws the essential conclusion that can be observed in all the Baltic countries, that “it is very common that some individuals in the established parties are more pro-European and some are more Eurosceptical.” The manifestations of personality and issue-based Euroscepticism in Estonia are discussed in the article by Illimar Ploom and Viljar Veebel – the two authors go even further, arguing about the borrowing of EU-critical ideas from leaders and Eurosceptic politicians of other EU member states, and ties of anti-EU proponents to Russia. Their analysis is followed
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