Bałtycy wyrosli. Nie nazywać ich nowymi państwami członkowskimi

As the core of EU decision-making becomes more plural and little a monopoly of the Paris-Berlin engine – Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius have proven to have reached full adulthood as EU associate states. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are no longer “new associate states” aspiring to be good students in a never-ending exam. The thought of an old Europe looking down at a teenage fresh Europe has been surpassed by history.

Twenty years ago, on May 1st 2004, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania together with another countries from Central and east Europe joined the European Union in what has become known as the “Big Bang enlargement”– the EU’s most ambitious expansion. Since they regained their independency in 1991, after more than 40 years of brutal russian occupation, the Baltic states have spent almost two-thirds of their fresh independent past as EU members.