Gas pipeline as Estonia’s foreign policy failure
12.11.2009, 14:55The fact that this week Swedish and Finnish governments gave their approval for developers of North Stream gas pipeline is a sign that Estonian foreign policy has failed again.
Rein Sikk writes in Eesti Päevaleht that while Estonians overwhelmingly opposed the project that they perceived as a threat to Estonia’s security, the politicians kept telling them they were lobbying hard to stop the project.
Instead of promised lobbying and convincing neighbouring governments, Estonian foreign policy makers showed that they were totally incapable of achieving anthing of the kind.
One may ask why were there no joint discussions of Baltic and Polish foreing ministers nor strong joint statements against Nord Stream?
Why were there no joint protests of Greens in Estonia and in neighbouring countries? Why our parliamentary parties failed to drum up support in other parliaments? Why the opinions of Estonian scientists were not distributed all over Europe?
Why the Baltic Sea parliaments did nothing to stop the project? Why the environmental committee of Riigikogu did not viist parliaments in Sweden, Denmark Germany and elsewhere? Why were there no attempts to put together an independent panel of experts?
Which international conferences were organised by the Estonian Ministry of Environmental Affairs whose officials love to talk about Baltic Sea strategy and cooperation? How man ministers of environmental affairs and prime ministers they invited to them?
Why have the Baltic presidents made no strong statements against the project?
Finally, where were our current and former Europarliament members who like to talk about their lobbying skills? How many MEPs did they convince and what did they achieve?