Latvia hits Russia with massive eco bill
Published: 28 April, 2009, 20:42
The Baltic state of Latvia is demanding $712 million (356 million lat) from Russia for environmental damage allegedly caused during the Soviet era.
Edmunds Stankevich, who heads the official Latvian commission looking into the issue, said: "these are the preliminary figures. The total damage has yet to be calculated."
The environmental report is one of many being produced by the government commission.
In an earlier report it claimed the Soviet occupation deprived Latvia of national income equal to what an individual may produce for 10 billion years.
Having assessed the environmental damage, the commission is busy with the economic, social and demographic harm allegedly inflicted by the USSR.
Latvia is expected to finish counting its might-have-beens and present Russia with a final bill as soon as in 2010. Experts assume the total sum of damages claimed could eventually top $20 billion.
”The commission’s activity is a real wrecking. They are making the claims amid the warming in the Russian-Latvian relations,” Andrey Klementiev, a member of the Latvian parliament, says.
”I’m wondering why the government keeps on funding the work of this commission, given the current economic crisis. Many hospitals have been recently closed, thousands of doctors, policemen, professors fired while the commission continues assessing the Soviet era occupation damages.”
Russia has many times rejected Latvia's claims.
Expert in the issue, Vladimir Simindey, sees a number of reasons behind the Latvian government’s move.
”That’s the initiative of a group of Latvian politicians, who eye to initiate a kind of Nuremberg trials on the former Soviet Union. Then, of course, it’s a tool of mobilizing some part of the Latvian electorate as well as gearing the Anti-Russian stance within the European Union,” Simindey said.
He added that in Latvia “it’s a sort of business for some politicians, who regularly get public money for assessing Soviet-era damages.”
In this situation Russia needs to take a hard line and stop “playing footsie with Latvian government officials”, Simindey says.
This is not the first time a Baltic state has tried to get compensation from Russia for alleged outrages committed by the USSR. In 2008, the Lithuanian leadership made similar claims for $28 billion, while the Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said he was waiting for Russia’s apologies.
All three states were part of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991. Some commentators have noted that denying a common history with big neighbor Russia is a policy cornerstone of the political elite of the Baltic states.
28.04.2009, 20:14
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Do you mean to say that Soviet Moscow caused NO environmental damage in the Baltics?? I could literally fill pages with examples of gross and wanton environmental vandalism directly caused by Moscow’s policies and by Moscow’s agencies in the Baltics throughout the Soviet years, and in my visits to Estonia I have seen some of it with my own eyes. Latvia would be no different, as indeed neither is Russia itself. But whereas Russia’s own Soviet-era pollution is its own handiwork, the Baltics wanted none of it – they did not want Moscow’s rule, Moscow’s Communism, Moscow’s inept policies nor Moscow's terror and force of arms which kept that rule in place for five decades. In response to Armen’s views relating to the impoverishment caused by the Soviet experience, in 1939 Estonia’s standard of living was slightly higher than Finland’s. In 1991, when the Soviets finally left, it was less than a quarter of Finland’s. Had Estonia not experienced a 50-year Soviet occupation, it would have a standard of living on a par with Finland’s today; as it is, I believe it is still not quite at the point of EU average. It will probably take another 30 years for Estonia to finally overcome the economic devastation which the Soviet experience imposed on it, and the same is also true of Latvia and Lithuania. However, Armen might be glad to know that for some years already Estonia is no longer the recipient of foreign aid, but a provider of foreign aid to some non-EU Eastern European countries, and to some Third World countries. Meanwhile, in the context of the current world economic crisis, Estonia has neither asked for nor been given any financial bail-outs.
(1) Do you mean to say that Soviet Moscow caused NO environmental damage in the Baltics?? I could literally fill pages with examples of gross and wanton environmental vandalism directly caused by Moscow’s policies and by Moscow’s agencies in the Baltics throughout the Soviet years, and in my visits to Estonia I have seen some of it with my own eyes. This reality is made all the more galling because the Baltics themselves wanted none of it – they did not want Moscow’s occupation, Moscow’s Communism, Moscow’s inept policies or Moscows terror and force of arms which kept Moscow’s rule in place for five decades. (2) In response to Armen’s views relating to the impoverishment caused by the Soviet experience, in 1939, which was its last pre-Soviet year of freedom, Estonia’s standard of living was slightly higher than Finland’s. In 1991, when the Soviets finally left, it was less than a quarter of Finland’s. Had Estonia not experienced a 50-year Soviet occupation, it would have a standard of living on a par with Finland’s today; as it is, I believe it is still not quite at the point of the EU average. It will probably take another 30 years for Estonia to finally overcome the economic devastation which the Soviet experience imposed on it. However, for some years already Estonia is no longer the recipient of foreign aid, but a provider of foreign aid to some non-EU Eastern European countries, and to some Third World countries. Also, in the context of the current world economic crisis, Estonia has neither asked for nor been given any financial bail-outs. (3) EU development funds are invested in Estonia according to the same standard criteria as apply generally within the EU.
A few facts are always interesting: 1. How much the Baltics are scrounging off the EU, yes it is 2% of their GDP. Amazing, it explains all the Porches I saw when I was living there, all paid for by the Germans. I thought they worked, but why work, when you can scrounge as they do of the Germans. 2. That it is impossible to litigate against the Soviet Union, because it doesn't exist. If it did then Russia could also bring an action against it. 3. Germany, however, does exist, so maybe an action against them would be supported by the EU, for that slight bit of environmental damage they did between 1939 and 1945. The Baltics are well used to stealing from the pockets of the average German worker, so nothing new there. 4. The considerable human rights abuses to ethnic Russians in the Baltics, would merrit a huge amount in damages.