A well-known Latvian businessman and analyst Sergey Vasilyev has wrote in his blog that Europe is closing up the “Baltics Euro-project.” There are many signs indicating to it, he writes, for instance, last summer the Austrian Foreign Ministry announced it will close the Embassies in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia by 2018.
“Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said openly that Austria seeks to open embassies in the country of ‘higher strategic importance’ instead of Malta and the Baltic States.” In fact, Austria is not the first and perhaps not the last country to suddenly start completely ignoring “the Baltic tigers.”
A month later, Belgium closed the Embassy in Latvia and announced its intention to close the embassies in Lithuania and Latvia in future. The Belgian Kingdom decided to save money and refused from unnecessary representations in the Baltics. Eventually, not only embassies proved unnecessary. Branches of foreign banks (while no others left) are closing one after another. At first, the foreign banks aggressively entered the market and ousted the rivals, now they began to leave the regional centers and then the capital cities. One of the first banks to run from Riga was the only American bank GE-money (in late 2012 - EADaily),” Vasilyev recalls.
According to Vasilyev, bankers knew that the financing of “the Baltic idiots” will be curtailed yet before the local governments learnt about it.
“Brussels and Washington refused to fund so cherished idea of a single Russophobic television. Apparently, the results of the Ukrainian TV activity has devaluated the idea, as even those who that TV channel was to propagate began to mock it, “ Vasilyev writes. “One day ‘our Western partners’ will understand that it is unaffordable luxury to keep several hundreds of local noisy politicians and thousands of fouling local officials amid the current crisis. They will replace that show with one general governor who will perfectly manage these countries. To ensure occupation for the titular population, they will resettle there several hundreds of thousands of swarthy-faced ‘New Europeans’ and the local national issue will be settled forever,” Sergey Vasilyev writes.