Frenzy of activity hides divisions below surface

Date: 24/04/1997

ONLY a year after leaders from 11 Baltic Sea states met at a special one-off leaders' summit in Visby, there are already moves afoot to hold another one.

The Latvian government, anxious to win some much-needed publicity for its small country, is pushing for another top-level family photo this year in its capital city Riga.

Although that summit will probably not take place until early 1998, the fact that Latvia's calls have not been rejected out of hand demonstrates the gathering pace of Baltic regional integration.

The Visby summit was only the most high-profile of an incredible array of meetings, conferences, councils and seminars which has sprung up since the end of the Cold War.

In fact, if the Baltics are suffering from anything on the organisational front, it is from a surfeit of activities which run the risk of losing direction and purpose.

Vying for space are Helcom (focusing on the environment), the Union of Baltic Cities, the Baltic Ports Association, B7 (the seven biggest islands in the Baltic Sea), the Nordic and Baltic Councils, and countless other institutions.

Amongst these, the Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS), established in 1992 in Copenhagen, has found itself in something of a leadership role, giving this hive of activity some kind of overarching coherence.

But there are growing criticisms that despite the hype, the practical achievements of Baltic cooperation are falling short of last year's grand hopes.

The primary aim of the CBSS is to find a common approach to the economic and political issues facing its members.

Those include four EU member states (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sweden), four applicants for Union membership (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland), two EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway), the European Commission and - in a strangely isolated position - Russia.

As both the European Union and NATO gear up for enlargement, revealing continued (if not growing) splits between East and West, the region can certainly do with any solidarity it can muster.

Centuries of war, occupation and unrest may have made the halcyon days of the legendary 13th century Hanseatic league seem like a distant dream, but its old members hark back to them in the sincere hope that they will return.

At Visby, leaders emerged with an ambitious action plan which promised more economic cooperation, support for the emerging Baltic democracies and the creation of a task force against organised crime.

“Since Visby, we have been working rather hard,” says Latvian ambassador Janis Ritenis, who chairs the CBSS committee of senior officials.

But business leaders claim that beyond such statements, they have seen few of the practical improvements which they demanded at a special Stockholm business summit also held last year.

A growing number of politicians from the former Soviet states are also asking what has happened to the European Commission's promises of wide-ranging support for their developing economies under the 'Baltic Sea Region Initiative', and suggest regional infrastructure projects are often misguided or incomplete.

Critics therefore argue that calls for a new summit - and even talk of enlargement of the CBSS to include Belarus and the Barents Sea - are premature while the Visby action plan remains little more than words on a piece of paper.

But it would not be fair to conclude that Visby was a failure, say diplomats. “It is ridiculous to expect a region to solve all its problems in a year,” said one.

Baltic cooperation in judicial matters is proving a crucial step towards convincing EU citizens and the business community that enlargement will not allow more rampant crime and mafia-style warfare to find its way into Europe.

Cross-border exchange programmes and information sharing are essential to narrowing the gulf of expertise that still separates East from West and, perhaps most importantly, politicians from throughout the region are at least trying to establish common aims and work together to achieve them.

But the development most likely to foster regional unity is largely out of the hands of the CBSS.

EU enlargement, which would unite eight of the organisation's members in a huge border-free single market, is kept under a tight leash by the Commission and Union governments.

Although the CBSS would dearly love to play a full part in that process, Commission experts constantly remind its administrators that the Union's future is being discussed in another place and another forum.

But that does not stop its members from trying.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are currently using every opportunity they possibly can to further their cause of rapid EU accession and Russia sees the CBSS as one of the only fora where it can discuss its concerns about a larger Europe in relative peace, without journalists dogging its diplomats' every move.

It is quite clear, however, that until the Union takes some hard and fast decisions about where and when it will expand, the entire Baltic project remains on tenterhooks.

That is why no one doubts that if a summit is held early next year, it will at least provide a much-needed release of tension in a highly fraught period.

Should the EU's Intergovernmental Conference finish on time, negotiations on Union enlargement will begin with the central and eastern European candidates in January 1998 - and there is a fair chance that only some of the candidate Baltic states will take part.

Of the four, only Poland seems to be assured of early negotiations, with European leaders lining up one behind the other to support the 40-million-strong central European giant's application.

The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, however, face a more uncertain future. Although Estonia has shone in terms of rapid privatisation and market reform, and is favoured in Commission circles, it remains - along with its two partners - in the shadow of a nervous and sometimes irrational Russia.

While no one would say so in public, that might be enough to give Europe's leaders cold feet, especially since the tiny republics are not exactly replete with rich consumers clamouring for EU goods.

The Baltic summit would also be taking place after this summer's NATO summit in Madrid, widely expected to offer Poland membership of the defence alliance but leave the three Baltics for another occasion.

Both they and Moscow will, as a consequence, be feeling vulnerable and affronted, and somewhat isolated from the rich western club.

The upshot of these development is that, despite the efforts of the CBSS, the Baltics could find themselves even more divided next year than now.

Perhaps hoping to diffuse any disappointment in advance, the European Commissioner for central and eastern Europe Hans van den Broek has been touring the Baltics this month with strong messages of support for their return to the European family, stressing that their fundamental democratic credentials are not in any doubt.

EU leaders have also been making a concerted, if not particularly high-profile, effort to convince Russia that, even outside the Union, it is an important and valued regional partner.

Commission officials classify Baltic regional cooperation as a broad success, saying it shows what peaceful collaboration can achieve.

As the region unites through rail links, energy networks and roads, they say, it will find it progressively harder to drift apart in practice - whatever its politicians may say in public.

But unless the transition economies begin to catch up with their neighbours, patience on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea may begin to wear thin.

Poverty has a way of showing through however much veneer is painted over the cracks.