On 14 September 2003 Estonians voted to join the European Union. The outcome – 67% in favour – was a hard-won result, yet still the lowest score among all eight accession countries. Deep down, the Estonians had doubts about the EU.
Estonia wanted to join Nato – passionately and wholeheartedly. The trauma of having been crushed between two totalitarian states in 1939-1940, with no one coming to your aid, had made membership of Nato an all-important policy goal, designed to ensure that this could never happen again.
The EU was a less understandable creature. For a start, it had the word “union” in its name. That was a grave shortcoming for a country that had just invested considerable effort into leaving another union. The idea of “submitting to Brussels’ rules” was not popular. Also, counterintuitively, the EU’s subsidies were not appealing to Estonia. Thanks to the Soviet experience the idea of any subsidies was discredited; they were seen as an unsustainable distortion of the economy. Estonia believed in a free market and trade. It was one of the few countries that had to raise, not lower, its external tariffs when it joined the EU.
So when the EU and Nato started to discuss enlargement, Estonia first viewed the EU largely as a backdoor into Nato, or as its imperfect substitute. By virtue of mutual integration perhaps it could offer at least some soft security, even if hard – in the shape of Nato – was not immediately available.
It quickly became evident that Nato would lack the political boldness to include the Baltic states in its first round of expansion, but the EU based its accession criteria at least nominally on objective indicators – and that offered Estonia a chance. Estonia’s policy became very simple: to reform better than Poland, and make everyone aware that we are better than Poland, so that the EU cannot not invite us. The latter was harder than the former, but in the end, both worked. Estonia was invited to join the EU. And then Nato.
A dozen years later it is evident that membership of the EU is not a poor substitute for Nato, but an invaluable supplement to it. Hard security decisions may be taken at Nato, but the socialisation necessary to make these arrangements efficient is largely achieved in the EU. Nato brings the west together for special occasions; the EU means living together – with all the frustrations, but also the intimacy and solidarity that this involves.
The EU is also an opportunity for a small country to be part of a big discussion. And in this context, all Europeans are small. Once a big EU country invited me to a discussion of its bilateral relations with Russia. The invitation puzzled me. What did they mean by “bilateral”? In the end, we only talked about European-Russian relations. It became very evident that while everyone in Europe can have bilateral talks with today’s big powers about trade, investment, cultural exchanges and so forth, it is only by sticking together as Europe that we really have a say on issues that shape the world: questions of the rules of the game and world order.
Interestingly, and contrary to many stereotypes, the merit-based approach that so benefited Estonia as a candidate country still works inside the EU. The EU may fill its important posts on the basis of political expediency and impersonal quotas, but if life presents it with questions, it looks for answers where these can be found – which may well be in a small country. Estonia is now the EU’s leader on digital and cyber issues – because it has built up the relevant expertise and learned how to offer it. Its efficient handling of the economic crisis has earned it credibility on economic issues. Russia’s annexation of Crimea has also given the Baltic states an authoritative voice on Russia – where earlier they were considered a biased party.
This ability to make a difference sometimes still feels novel and unusual. When I see some of my own policy proposals adopted as talking points by the big EU countries I cannot help but wonder: do they actually know to whom they are listening here? Do they know that I was born in a country ruled by Leonid Brezhnev? Do they know I was always the worst in my dancing class? Can they imagine how ugly the plastic jewellery I used to wear at high school was? Probably, they do not. But if they did, they would not care. If you have something useful to say, Brezhnev and bad jewellery do not matter.
In Estonia, the EU’s popularity has never again been as low as 67%. It now usually hovers above 80%.