As the core of EU decision-making becomes more plural and less a monopoly of the Paris-Berlin engine – Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius have proven to have reached full adulthood as EU member states. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are no longer “new member states” aspiring to be good students in a never-ending exam. The idea of an old Europe looking down at a teenage new Europe has been surpassed by history.
Twenty years ago, on May 1st 2004, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania together with other countries from Central and Eastern Europe joined the European Union in what has become known as the “Big Bang enlargement”– the EU’s…
