MOST people think of the Baltic States as one region, with no big differences between Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. That seemed reasonable enough when all three were occupied by the Soviet Union; when they won their independence in 1991; and when they entered NATO and the EU in 2004. Moreover they constituted an investment heaven of relatively low taxes, a cheap labour force and consumers hungry for everything “western”, from telecommunications to shoes.



But that was then. Now the trio are going in opposing directions. In 2011 Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will no longer count as a single economic and political region.



Estonia, one of the most disciplined countries in the EU, will be labelled as “Eastern Europe” only geographically. The country had been hit by a global crisis as much as its neighbours but has recovered rapidly. That may be why officials and inhabitants

prefer their country to be described as “Nordic”, distancing it from the less successful Balts. To rub in the difference, Estonia has joined a group of countries bailing out deeply troubled Latvia.



Meanwhile, Latvia is shaping a course towards the Kremlin. On December 19th, for the first time since 1994, a Latvian president paid an official visit to Moscow. Valdis Zatlers met both President Dmitry Medvedev (the meeting lasted for 40 minutes longer than was planned) and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. (For its part, Estonia still does not have an invitation to visit Moscow.)



Lithuania, which unlike Latvia has refused IMF and EU loans, has masochistically preferred to struggle alone through its financial pain. Its foreign policy is rather odd, too: back in April President Dalia Grybauskaite refused to show up to dinner with Barack Obama, having said that there would be “no decision-making”. Instead, she is drifting towards the autocratic president of Belarus, Alyaksandr Lukashenka.



Put all this together, and in January, when Estonia adopts the euro, the differences between three, once equal countries will be impossible to ignore. If a Baltic Tiger is still alive in 2011, it will definitely be Estonia. Perhaps not a tiger, but certainly a Nordic kitten.











