Mart Kadastik on Baltoscandia

In the Estonian daily Postimees Mart Kadastik describes the cooperation among Scandinavian states as an example the Baltic states should follow and examines Estonia's position: "There it is again, the question: where do we belong?. Only recently Estonia's president Toomas Hendrik Ilves revived ... the issue. Ilves believes identities change with the passage of time: they become stronger but are also influenced by external factors. Thus in the Europe of the 1920s and 30s the countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland were referred to as Baltic states in a foreign policy context, while the current definition of the Baltic goes back to Soviet times. In the near future today's Baltic states could move closer together but develop in different directions. But the strongest identity is likely to be that of a Baltoscandia [a union between Baltic and Scandinavian states]. And this doesn't mean that we'll ignore the Latvians and the Lithuanians but rather the contrary: Belonging to a Baltoscandia woud open up new possibilities for all the states bordering on the Baltic, and not just in the Eurovision Song Contest."

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