Before the EU-enlargements to include much of Eastern Europe many countries discussed "transition rules" to mitigate the negative effects of an expected mass emigration from the new Member States to the "old" EU 15 countries. In the Nordic countries, given their high levels of social protection, a fear of "social tourism" emerged, especially from countries like e.g. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Indeed, the population declines the Baltic countries have experienced are usually seen as a result of labour emigration due to EU membership.
In retrospect however, EU membership did not boost emigration from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – the major emigration boost came just after independence. Although the net migration for Estonia and Latvia has been negative, the volume is insignificant during the 2000s (less than 1,000 persons per year); since 2004, moreover, negative net migration to Lithuania has decreased by almost 50 per cent.
Since independence the total population of Estonia has decreased by some 15 %, by 14.3 % in Latvia and by 8.3 % in Lithuania. Behind these stark figures however lies an altogether different reality – to a large extent the population decline is caused by these countries' ethnic minorities leaving. While the ethnic Estonians have decreased by 9.7% in Estonia, the Russian minority in Estonia has decreased by 21.4%, the Ukrainians by 31.4% and the Belarusian minority by 29.1%.
In Latvia ethnic Latvians have decreased by 5.1 % since independence. Simultaneously the Russian minority has decreased by 25.4 %, the Ukrainian minority by 22% and the Belarusians by 33.9 %. The development in Lithuania is much the same: ethnic Lithuanians have decreased by 3.8 %, the Russian minority by 38.5%, the Ukrainians by 46.5 % and the Belarusian minority by 35.3 %.
After independence the Baltic countries introduced harsh rules for obtaining citizenship, including e.g. far reaching language skills in the new official languages. Several other civic rights were limited for the ethnic minorities, which especially hit the Russian minorities in these countries. The minorities in the Baltic countries experience higher unemployment and lower relative incomes than the natives; they have a lower material standard of living than the natives etc. Since they are, to a large extent, stateless they are deprived of civic rights like voting in general elections, i.e. they have no means of changing their situation through democracy. This has been criticised by the European Union and human rights organisations.
Some of the Russian emigrants have left for Russia, Ukrainians for Ukraine and Belarusian's for Belarus. For those who have no family and relatives in these countries a choice has to be made between continued deprivation or becoming one of the labour migrants from the Baltic countries who eagerly pick up work in the European Union and in the Nordic countries. Here we consider them all as 'Baltics'.
By Daniel Rauhut previous Senior Research Fellow at Nordregio
Demography and the labour market is one of Nordregio's main research themes. The Journal of Nordregio latest contribution was "No Nordic shortage of labour" by Daniel Rauhut and Petri Kahila in No 3/2008. Nordregio will be involved in the ESPON project on demography and migratory flows affecting European regions. Articles on the subject will follow.