Ian Traynor & Lars Eriksen in Copenhagen | Sept 14

The Guardian - Helle Thorning-Schmidt expected to lead centre-left coalition into power and become country's first female prime minister

Ten years of rightwing rule that have turned Denmark into the most closed country in Europe for immigrants looks likely to end this week, with a Social Democrat tipped to become the Danes' first female prime minister.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the daughter-in-law of Neil and Glenys Kinnock, looks likely to head a new centre-left coalition, replacing the Liberal leader, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, whose minority government has been propped up for the past decade by the far-right anti-immigrant and europhobic Danish People's party (DPP).

The Social Democrats are struggling in the opinion polls and may lose votes and seats in the 179-seat parliament in Copenhagen, but her four-party "red" coalition is expected to nudge ahead of the coalescing liberals and conservatives. The latest polls before Thursday's general election give the centre-left a margin of victory of between three and 10 seats.

A victory for the centre-left would wrest the kingmaker status from the DPP, which has leveraged its support for the current government to drive legislation on immigration and asylum. The DPP has tried to ratchet up the debate over migration and border controls, but in the runup to the election the issue has been overshadowed by Denmark's struggling economy.

"With the economic crisis as the backdrop we find ourselves in the middle of a completely different election from what we have seen in many years," said Thomas Larsen, a political commentator writing in the Berlingske newspaper. "Gone is the talk of value-based politics. Gone is the often heated and emotional debate about justice and immigration policies, which were such a big part of the elections in 2001, 2005 and 2007. Today the political battle is about three things – economy, economy and economy."

Trude Pettersen | Sept 9

Barents Observer - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pressed the start button to open the North Stream pipeline carrying natural gas directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

He said the Nord Stream pipeline would reduce Russia's dependence on Ukrainian pipelines, which were shut during gas disputes between Moscow and Kiev.

"Technical gas", needed to build up pressure, was released at the Portovaya compressor station located near Vyborg last Tuesday. It is expected German consumers will begin receiving Russian gas through the new pipeline in a few weeks.

Ian Traynor | Riga | Mar 16

The Guardian - Aivars Ozols paid a heavy price for trying to save Latvia from Bolshevism. Transported to Siberia in 1945 as a Russian prisoner of war and starved nearly to death, he lost his legs when a train smashed into the lorry carrying him to a new labour camp in Stalin's gulag.

The 85-year-old remembers every detail vividly. He spent nine years in Stalin's camps. And he remembers, too, being conscripted by the Nazis into the Waffen-SS in Riga in 1943, when the occupying Germans needed new cannon fodder to try to hold back the Red army.

"We went to war. There was nothing voluntary about it. We had no choice," he said.

He is proud, nonetheless, of the part he played. Of the successive occupations washing over Latvia – the Russians in 1940, the Germans in 1941, the Russians again in 1944 – there is no doubt which he preferred. "The Germans related to us more humanely. They saw us simply as people."

For Britons reared on the Churchillian narrative, for Americans who crossed the Atlantic to save Europe from Nazi barbarism, for Russians who see the defeat of Hitler as their finest moment, and most of all, for Jews to whom the Holocaust represents the apogee of evil, Ozols' position may seem perverse.

Brussels | Mar 2

Reuters - NATO warplanes will fly training missions over the Baltic states this month in a show of solidarity with former Soviet republics concerned about Russia.

The March 17 exercises will involve French, Polish and Lithuanian aircraft, a NATO statement said on Tuesday.

The "defensive training" exercise will be "a demonstration of NATO solidarity and commitment to its member countries in the Baltic Region", the statement said.

The announcement of the exercises follows France's plan to sell warships to Russia, a move which has raised concern in the former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

The three, now all NATO members, fear the deal could affect their security, given Russia's 2008 intervention in Georgia, a country that has been promised eventual NATO membership.

France has defended its plans, saying it is important to build relations with Russia -- something NATO as an alliance is seeking to do to improve cooperation on global security issues.

NATO is particularly keen to secure more Russian support for its mission in Afghanistan, which has been struggling to contain a widening Islamist insurgency.

Milda Seputyte | Dec 22

Bloomberg - A Lithuanian parliamentary commission said it gathered enough evidence to conclude that the country agreed on “conditions” for the Central Intelligence Agency to operate a secret prison in the Baltic state.

The commission, which questioned more than 50 people including former Presidents Valdis Adamkus and Rolandas Paksas to determine if the prison existed, said multiple CIA aircraft landed in Lithuania without border checks. The state security department, which was aware of the operations, failed to inform the president or the prime minister, said Arvydas Anusauskas, head of the lawmakers’ commission.

ABC News reported in August that the CIA operated a secret detention facility in Vilnius from September 2004 through November 2005 to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners.

President Dalia Grybauskaite said on Oct. 20 she had “indirect suspicions” that a prison existed in the Baltic nation and called for an official investigation.

“If this is true, Lithuania must clean up, take responsibility, apologize and promise this will never happen again,” Grybauskaite said at a press conference on Oct. 20.

Vanessa mock | Nov 17

The Independent - Flame-haired Latvian Vaira Vike-Freiberga, known as the "Iron Lady of the North", is leading a pack of late contenders who have dashed into the closing round of the race to become the EU's first president.

With so much still to play for, diplomats have warned of a long night on Thursday, when EU leaders meet to decide names over dinner. Some suspect the talks will spill over into Friday; others that a decision may be postponed even beyond that, but the Swedish presidency is determined not to let that happen.

Over the past days, another Baltic colleague, Estonia's President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, has added his name to the growing list of presidential hopefuls, which is now thought to include around a dozen potential candidates. Although Tony Blair's chances still look extremely slim, there has been renewed momentum behind a faltering bid by Luxembourg's premier Jean-Claude Juncker and mentions of Spain's ex-leader Jose Maria Aznar. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who was president of Latvia until 2007 and led the former Soviet state into the EU and Nato, is the only female candidate applying for the newly created job. Known for her charisma and outspoken views, she was an enormously popular leader at home, with thousands of grateful Latvians turning out to lay flowers when she retired.

But she is now nearly 72 and despite a vigorous campaign on Facebook and in a string of European capitals looks unlikely to unseat the current favourite, Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy.

However, her candidacy chimes with growing demands to appoint a woman as either President or EU High Representative, the number two post created by the Lisbon
Treaty.

With the possible exception of Georgia-US-Russia, no US relationship in the former Soviet region is more fraught today than the US-Russia-Ukraine triangle. At a time when Washington and Moscow have variously committed to a relationship reset, a new operating system, and a rerun of the Clinton-Yeltsin strategic partnership, it is disappointing how little substance has followed rhetoric. Meanwhile, Central and Eastern Europe are still reeling from the US Administration’s abrupt and ill-timed reversal on missile defense deployment, and Team Obama is eager for opportunities to demonstrate its commitment to the new Europe, which received no shortage of love from the Bush Administration.

Sabina Casagrande | Aug 27

Deutsche Welle - US media has named Lithuania as a further European country to have allegedly hosted secret CIA prisons. But clarifying the matter is proving to be challenging, as some officials appear to be stalling investigations.

Lithuania has promised to investigate the latest allegations of hosting a secret CIA prison for al Qaeda suspects on the outskirts of the capital Vilnius, said its new president Dalia Grybauskaite.

The parliament of the former Soviet country was already putting together a special committee to look into the case, Grybauskaite told reporters during an official visit to Brussels on Tuesday. However, she said she had no confirmation of the claims.

"It is regretful that my country's name is on the list," said Grybauskaite. "It will be for us to prove if it is true or not."

Last week, former CIA officials directly involved or briefed on the highly classified program told US television network ABC News that Lithuania was the third country in Europe to provide the CIA with such facilities. Sources have previously named Poland and Romania, as well.

Juhan Tere | Tallinn | Apr 30

The Baltic Course -

At the public discussion on the environmental impact assessment report that was drafted on the Nord Stream gas pipe in the Ministry of Environment, Estonia researchers, particularly the member of the Nature Conservation Committee of the Academy of Sciences Ivar Puura, raised the issue of the quality of the survey.

Puura pointed out that the developers of the gas pipe have only researched the seabed under the gas pipe route at the depth of five centimetres whereas in order to achieve sufficient thoroughness, marine sediments up to 30 centimetres from the surface should be viewed.

"In such a case, the results would be more comprehensive; besides, the impact of dioxins has currently not assessed at all," explained Puura. He added that Russia's data have also not been included in the report, concluding that on the basis of information available, no adequate assessment can be made.

Apr 30

BBC - Russia has confirmed Nato has expelled two of its diplomats from Brussels, reportedly in retaliation for a spy scandal involving an Estonian official.

In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry described the expulsions as "outrageous" and a "crude provocation".

Nato diplomats claimed the Russians were undercover intelligence agents.

The official, Herman Simm, was jailed for 12 years in February by an Estonian court for passing Nato defence and diplomatic secrets to Moscow.

The court where the former head of Estonia's national security system was tried did not reveal which country he spied for, but investigators said Mr Simm passed nearly 3,000 documents to Russia.

Interesting places in the EU.

Riga | Mar 9

DPA - Tensions rose Monday between Latvia and Russia ahead of a planned march to commemorate Waffen-SS soldiers on March 16, as Latvian foreign minister Maris Riekstins blasted Russian claims the Baltic state was glorifying Nazism.

'Nobody in Latvia is praising fascist ideology,' Riekstins said during a TV interview on Monday.

On March 7, Russian media quoted an anonymous Russian foreign ministry source describing the Legionnaire's Day commemoration as a 'Nazi supporters march' and drew parallels between it and Holocaust denial.

'Clearly the Russian foreign ministry does not have enough information about neo-Nazi trends in Russia, the murders of journalists and ethnic minority issues in Russia, otherwise it would never direct such criticism against Latvia, which has never found totalitarian ideology acceptable,' Rieksins said.

March 16 is designated 'Legionnaires Day' in Latvia, and traditionally includes a parade in central Riga to remember soldiers who fought on the German side in World War II.

The event is always a potential flashpoint, drawing crowds of nationalist supporters and anti-fascist demonstrators. Clashes have broken out in the past, though 2008's event was peaceful thanks to a large police presence.

Aaron Eglitis | Feb 23

Bloomberg - Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, facing a prolonged recession, say they will protect their currency pegs whatever the cost. That strategy may be as crippling as the alternative, economists say.

The three-nation Baltic region is in its deepest crisis since breaking from the Soviet Union in 1991. Latvia, which spent $1.26 billion in 11 weeks defending the lats last year, was forced to turn to an International Monetary Fund-led group for a $9.6 billion bailout. Its economy may contract 12 percent this year, while Estonian gross domestic product may shrink by as much as 9 percent and Lithuania's GDP by 4.9 percent.

Latvian Premier Ivars Godmanis resigned on Feb. 20 and Lithuania's two-month-old cabinet is struggling to win over a skeptical electorate after the two nations suffered the largest street riots since independence last month.

Keeping the peg “will likely mean a number of years of very low economic growth,” said Lars Christensen, chief economist at Danske Bank AS in Copenhagen. “Wages and prices will have to fall to reestablish competitiveness.”

Jason Burke | Marijampole, Lithuania | Feb 8

The Observer - No jobs, no prospects, no growth. Jason Burke travels to Marijampole to find a Lithuania where the boom is over and the slump is worse than in western Europe - and yet most still believe that American-style capitalism will be the solution to its problems

Riga | Feb 3

DPA -

Latvia's four-party coalition government was teetering on the verge of collapse Monday after talks aimed at preventing industrial action by farmers broke down without agreement and serious differences between ministers became more evident.

Embattled prime minister Ivars Godmanis faces a parliamentary vote of no confidence on February 4 and the odds on him winning the ballot are shortening.

Tensions increased Monday after farmers' groups walked out of talks with Godmanis' government and said they would step up plans for demonstrations, starting with 'wide-ranging action' on February 3.

Farmers, who are an important political force in Latvia, have been getting more militant by the minute. Having started their demands for increased government support with good-natured publicity stunts such as giving away free milk, arguing that it was not even worth selling, they have moved on to direct action using rolling blockades of slow- moving farm machinery.

Ian Traynor | Jan 31

The Guardian - France paralysed by a wave of strike action, the boulevards of Paris resembling a debris-strewn battlefield. The Hungarian currency sinks to its lowest level ever against the euro, as the unemployment figure rises. Greek farmers block the road into Bulgaria in protest at low prices for their produce. New figures from the biggest bank in the Baltic show that the three post-Soviet states there face the biggest recessions in Europe.

It's a snapshot of a single day – yesterday – in a Europe sinking into the bleakest of times. But while the outlook may be dark in the big wealthy democracies of western Europe, it is in the young, poor, vulnerable states of central and eastern Europe that the trauma of crash, slump and meltdown looks graver.

Exactly 20 years ago, in serial revolutionary rejoicing, they ditched communism to put their faith in a capitalism now in crisis and by which they feel betrayed. The result has been the biggest protests across the former communist bloc since the days of people power.

Europe's time of troubles is gathering depth and scale. Governments are trembling. Revolt is in the air.

Jason Burke | Jan 18

The Observer - Riots and street battles are set to spread through Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states as inflation, unemployment and racism fuel tension

Eastern Europe is heading for a violent "spring of discontent", according to experts in the region who fear that the global economic downturn is generating a dangerous popular backlash on the streets.

Hit increasingly hard by the financial crisis, countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states face deep political destabilisation and social strife, as well as an increase in racial tension.

Holger Stark | November 17

Spiegel Online - For years an Estonian government official has apparently been collecting the most intimate secrets of NATO and the EU -- and passing them on to the Russians. The case is a disaster for Brussels.

Communications between the suspected top spy and his commanding officer seemed like a throwback to the Cold War. Investigators allege that in order to send messages to his Russian contact, Herman Simm, 61, used a converted radio which looked like a relic from yesteryear's world of consumer electronics. But there was nothing old-fashioned about what Simm, a high-ranking official in the Estonian Defense Ministry in Tallinn, reportedly transmitted to Moscow over the years. It was the very latest intelligence information.

Also see Tina's earlier post here

Prague | May 28

AP - he Latvian flag was in the game program along with a photo of the Latvian national soccer team. Before the match, Czech organizers played Latvia's national anthem.

However, the Czech Republic was facing Lithuania on Tuesday night, not Latvia.

The Czech Republic's soccer federation apologized Wednesday to its Lithuanian counterpart and to the Lithuanian embassy in Prague. The federation said in a statement that the mistakes were inexcusable and measures will be taken not to repeat them in the future.

Federation spokesman Vaclav Tichy took responsibility and resigned from his post. His deputy was fired and another federation official fined, the statement said.

The Czech Republic, preparing for next month's European Championship, won 2-0.

James M. Gomez and Andrea Dudikova | Prague | December 18

Bloomberg - Along a tree-lined road in eastern Lithuania, once part of the Soviet Union, Giedrius Matkevicius was on the prowl for invaders from neighboring Belarus, another ex-Soviet state.

``Our job has become more important, more significant, now that we have to guard the external border of the EU,'' the 36- year-old customs officer said as he monitored a bank of computers in a cement and sheet-metal complex at the frontier. Nearby, a female colleague in an olive-green uniform scanned live images of snowy fields, truck inspections and passing cars.

Where only tall pines once separated the countries, a 679- kilometer (422-mile) fence now reminds 9.7 million Belarusians that they are outsiders in a European Union that includes western neighbors Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. The line becomes even more pronounced on Dec. 21, when those three and five other ex-communist nations join a club within the EU club: the so- called Schengen Zone, where citizens and tourists travel without passports.

Chris Schüler | Liepaja, Latvia | Dec 14

The Independent - From the coast road that leads into the Latvian port of Liepaja from the north, it is an astonishing sight – a vast Russian Orthodox cathedral, its gilded onion domes lit up by floodlights, surrounded by a suburb of crumbling Soviet apartment blocks.

This is Karosta, founded by the tsarist regime as a naval base in the 1890s and used by the Soviet military as recently as 20 years ago. A ship canal separates Karosta from central Liepaja, and the swing bridge across it has been padlocked for more than a year since a Georgian tanker ran into it during a storm, obliging residents to make a detour of several kilometres and reinforcing Karosta's isolation from the rest of the city.

Liepaja's official tourist brochure tries to make a virtue of Karosta's "enchanting brutality", waxing lyrical about "the sweet smell of wild roses among the hard, cold steel of twisted barbed wire". In reality, it is a dismal, desperate place, riven by unemployment and drug addiction, its streets dark and deserted on a Saturday night. Karosta is where most of the city's Russian-speaking population live – the ancillary workers brought here to service the naval base, now left high and dry by the receding tide of Soviet power.

Adam B. Ellick | Vilnius, Lithuania | November 11

IHT - EVEN as Jonas Kronkaitis, now retired as Lithuania's top general, admires the transformation of this once drab Soviet city into a proud member of the New Europe, a worry eats at him: Russian power is rapidly returning to the Baltics, only this time the weapons are oil and money, not tanks.

Kronkaitis has a unique perspective. He fled Lithuania to America as a boy in 1944, and served nearly 30 years in the United States Army before returning to command his newly independent country's military in the 1990's. He engineered its entry into NATO in 2004, thinking this would help cement security for the tiny Baltic nation. Now he says his hopeful view was wrong.

Addis Ababa | August 31

AP - Ethiopia's decision to expel six Norwegian diplomats will cost the country US$5 million (€3.75 million) in development aid, an official said Friday.

Hilde Klementsdal, a spokeswoman for Norway's aid ministry, said the decision was practical, not political.

"It would not be responsible to give that much money without anyone to check it," she said.

Norway had been planning to give Ethiopia — one of the poorest countries in the world — about US$17 million (€3.75 million) this year. She said the ministry planned to look into other ways to help projects in Ethiopia.

The six Norwegian diplomats were asked to leave the country by Sept. 15, leaving three staffers in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia did not give a specific reason for the ouster, but said Norway's government has been "pampering" anti-Ethiopia groups in the Horn of Africa.

May 2

BBC - Estonia has closed its consulate in Moscow after pro-Kremlin youth groups attacked diplomats in protest at the relocation of a Soviet war memorial.

Estonia's foreign ministry said there was an attempt to physically assault their ambassador at a news conference.

It said the incident amounted to a violation of diplomatic conventions.

Estonians of Russian origin rioted last week after the controversial statue of a Soviet soldier was moved away from the centre of the capital, Tallinn.

One person died and 153 were injured in the unrest.

Estonians say the soldier symbolised Soviet occupation. Russians describe it as a tribute to those who fought the Nazis.

Karl Ritter | Helsinki | March 18

AP - Finland's ruling centrist party barely won parliamentary elections Sunday, with the main opposition Conservatives making strong gains to possibly claim a spot in the next government.

The outcome could lead to the formation of a new center-right government, and leave out the left-leaning Social Democrats, the Center Party's main coalition partner. However, a possible shift in government was not expected to yield major changes in the country of 5.3 million, one of Europe's most homogenous societies.

``In an election it's always easy to win from the opposition, but the most difficult thing is to renew one's victory,'' Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen told supporters after a 99-percent vote count showed his Center Party won 51 seats in the 200-member Parliament, one more than the Conservatives.