INTRODUCTION

For Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, domestic and international policies are informed disproportionately by questions of the existential threat of neighbouring and openly irredentist Russia. The responses of the three Baltic states to the United Kingdom’s renegotiation, referendum and vote to leave have followed this logic. Indeed, the UK was a major power in each of the two strategic tracks that all three countries had used to make their removal from the Western security umbrella as unlikely as possible, namely NATO membership and rapid and deep integration into all European Union initiatives.

We argue that the similar existential threats shared by the three, and resultantly similar strategic approaches, have been mirrored in their fairly common responses to Britain in the period covered here. Above all, the three states were keen not only to maintain the UK’s security contribution across the Baltics but also to safeguard the integrity and unity of the EU. Strategically, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have – with success, thus far – aimed to ensure that the two issues are kept as separate as possible, most pertinently by keeping military commitments out of EU–UK negotiations.

Baltic reaction to the UK’s renegotiation, referendum and vote to leave has not been solely in security terms, however. The second major concern has been the future of the free movement of goods, capital and labour, particularly the latter, because of the large communities of citizens from the three Baltic states living in the UK. The reaction of the three states has also been partially informed by their nature as eastern, pro-free-market and small member states, particularly so after the referendum, as they turned their gaze towards the possible political dynamics of the post-Brexit EU. Overall, the potentially destabilizing security implications of Brexit for the EU and NATO meant that, as Article 50 was triggered, the three Baltic countries all sought a speedy, amicable and legalistic resolution of negotiations between the two parties that minimizes disruption to the status quo ante Brexit.

ESTONIA

When, in October 2015, the Estonian prime minister, Taavi Roivas, met with David Cameron he made it clear that “Estonia and the UK have a similar understanding of the changed security situation – we are very close allies in both NATO and the European Union”.