Blue-Black-White: Baltic Sea and a shared History. German-Baltic Republic’s relations, cooperation after Ostsiedlung. The Estonian case
Abstract
After the centuries-long presence of German aristocracy in the economy (e.g. as land owner), on education and culture (e.g. German as official language), but most of all, on politics and in the administration (e.g. its relevance in high political positions at the time of Russian Empire) of the Baltic Republics, specially in Estonia and Latvia, the relations between Germany and those three countries changed profoundly, in that path of History.
With the recognition of independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1990/1, Germany has been one of European Union’s countries which supported more actively their aspiration to integrate EU as member states, something achieved in 2004, as well as in NATO. However, German-Baltic Republics relations are not only constituted by cooperation in International Organizations, bilateral issues are relevant too.
In this way, one also could discuss about the affairs between those Republics, focusing particularly in Estonia, and federal states of Germany which wrap many fields from politics to agriculture, from culture to police cooperation, from economy to education.