On the eve of the 80 anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War on September 1, 1939, Russia’s Foreign Ministry tweeted out an extract from a joint report titled "The Heritage of WWII in the Baltic States".
That extract read: “In the early 90s the Baltic nations gained their national independence. This event raised hopes & aspirations the Baltic Soviet Republics would turn into modern democratic & rule-of-law states, which, unfortunately, never came true.”
Experts, former politicians and diplomats strongly contest the Russian Foreign ministry’s assertion.
“Russia’s claim that the Baltic nations never turned into modern, democratic and rule-of-law states is patently false. It is ridiculous that anyone in the Russian Foreign Ministry would claim that,” Matthew Bryza, former U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan told Polygraph.info.
Bryza, who was previously director of the International Center for Defense and Security, a Tallinn-based think tank, said that Estonia “is one of the most dynamic, modern, rule-of-law countries in all of the European Union.”
Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves mirrored that sentiment, telling Polygraph.info Estonia is “by far the least corrupt post-communist country.”
Ilves said the Russian Foreign Ministry was merely “rehashing” the same baseless arguments Russia has been making for 28 years, adding the Baltic states “wouldn’t’ have been admitted to NATO or the EU if [Russia’s claims] had any merit.”
Ilves was referring to the so-called Copenhagen criteria, which determine who is eligible to join the European Union, and criteria for a North Atlantic Treaty Organization Membership Action Plan.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined the EU and NATO in 2004.
The EU requires that any potential member have “stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.”
aspiring members that have, among other things, “built a democratic system of governance and a market economy.”
Aliide Naylor, a writer-in-residence at the Latvia-based International Writers' and Translators' House and the author of the book “The Shadow in the East: Vladimir Putin and the New Baltic Front,” likewise called the Russian Foreign Ministry’s claim “untrue and wildly hypocritical.”
“The three Baltic nations have varying degrees of democracy, ‘modernity’, freedom, and corruption,” Naylor told Polygraph.info. “But according to the 2019 [Freedom House] Freedom in the World report, Estonia ranks at 94/100 – a better score than both the U.S. and the U.K. [Latvia was ranked 87 out of 100 and Lithuania 91 out of 100, with 100 meaning most free]. Like any other nation, they still struggle with imperfect political processes, but to say they never turned into modern and democratic states is silly.”
Many international organizations have made similar assessment of the Baltic nations’ democratic bona fides.
Freedom House, a U.S. government-funded think tank that conducts research and advocacy on democracy and related issues, counted among “consolidated democracies” in its 2018 Nations in Transit 2018 report.
That report, which tracked the progress of the former Soviet states, found that 19 of the 29 countries had declines in their overall democracy scores.
Freedom House called Estonia one of “three bright spots,” and raised Estonia’s National Democratic Governance rating from 2.25 to 2.00 (1 – most democratic, 7 – least democratic), citing its “demonstrated resilience and impartiality of national institutions, as well as respect for institutions by all major stakeholders, after the change of government in November 2016.”
Estonia’s democratic governance and corruption ratings also improved.
Latvia, which Freedom House found to have “continued on its path to becoming a stable north European democracy,” did see its Civil Society score drop, in part because of the rise of illiberal groups. Freedom House also lowered Lithuania’s Civil Society rating, calling corruption the biggest threat to democracy there.
The German-based Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation’s Transformation Index (BTI), which analyzes and evaluates successes and setbacks on the path toward a democracy based on the rule of law and a socially responsible market economy, to be democracies in consolidation.
The BTI eighth out of 129 countries analyzed for its quality of democracy, market economy and political management, noting that the Baltic country has “free and fair parliamentary and local elections.”
The BTI in fourth place, saying it has “no constraints on free and fair elections,” while