ABSTRACT
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania began their time as members of the European Union and NATO in 2004 having accomplished their primary foreign policy objectives of the post-Soviet era. With their security dilemma ‘solved’ and economic growth prospects seemingly assured, the Baltic States were expected to gradually normalize their relations with the Russian Federation. Judging from growing bilateral trade volumes throughout most of the 2000s, one may indeed get an impression of normalization. However, the politics of the postenlargement era did not bring ‘the end of history’ to the eastern Baltic region. As argued by Galbreath (2010), the Baltic States found themselves ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place’. Although confrontations over Russian speaking minorities somewhat subsided, the unsolved borders with Estonia and Latvia, energy-related issues and broader security concerns rolled over into the post-enlargement era. All of these and other issues have been coloured by the historical-psychological legacies of the Soviet era with its diverging interpretations and experiences in Baltic and Russian collective memories.
