Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have been independent nations since 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The following 20-odd years of independence have seen the three countries make very inconsistent economic and political progress. It all started well with independence but it soon became clear that they each had a vulnerability to economic crises. The three countries joined the European Union in May 2004, along with other central European countries, and EU accession was considered to be a great political and economic milestone for the three states on the Baltic Sea.

The three countries are now in the 10th year of EU and NATO membership and, with Lithuania’s planned accession next year to the euro zone (Estonia became a euro zone member in January 2011 and Latvia in January 2014), the Baltic states will soon be full members of all three western unions. The transition from membership of the Warsaw Pact into a fully-valued component of the West would then be compl