TALLINN - Estonia is the most westernized of the former Soviet Union states, it can be seen from the results of a fresh study carried out by StrategEast, a U.S. strategic center for political and diplomatic solutions, the daily Postimees reports.

The organization analyzed the development of 14 countries of the Post-Soviet, Non-Russian region (PSNR) as a whole in five categories: political, economic, legal, language and cultural westernization, and westernization of lifestyle. According to the center, it decided to not study Russia for this analysis because it wants to focus on smaller countries who have received less attention than Russia in similar international studies.

According to the analysis, Estonia is the most westernized of the former Soviet Union member states, while Lithuania and Latvia followed. The least westernized of the 14 countries was Turkmenistan.

Estonia received 23 points out of the maximum 25 in the political westernization and legal westernization categories. According to authors of the study, Estonia did not received the maximum score in the political westernization category because there are still tens of thousands of Estonian residents without citizenship and they cannot take part in the country's parliamentary election.

It is added in the report that non-citizens can vote in Estonia's local elections. The report also points out that there are two parties in the Estonian parliament that have criticized the European Union and NATO.