Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia
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Friday, 19.04.2024, 22:00
Parliament speakers doubt Baltic countries could be compensated for Soviet occupation damage
Viktoras Pranckietis, speaker of the Lithuanian Seimas,
said the Baltic countries "hit the wall" every time they tried
to raise the issue of compensation for occupation damages.
"Perhaps
we should set ourselves goals that we can achieve," he told
reporters.
Pranckietis
spoke several weeks after the Estonian Ministry of Justice said it
had calculated the damage caused to the country by the Soviet occupation.
Eiki Nestor, speaker of the Estonian Riigikogu, was also
skeptical about further steps in this matter.
"I'm
not so sure something very positive can happen on this issue," he
said.
Inara Murniece, speaker of the Latvia Saeima, said the Baltic
nations should first agree among themselves on this issue.
The
Estonian Justice Ministry said in mid-October that a special commission
estimated the Soviet occupation damage at 1.2 bln euros.
Research
that has recently been launched in Lithuania and is yet incomplete shows that
the country was a net contributor to the Soviet budget, rather than a net
beneficiary, in the first post-war decade of occupation.
An expert
commission appointed by the Latvian government two years ago has found that
Lithuania allocated around 6% of its budget to the Soviet Union in
Soviet times and was a donor to the economy.
According
to the experts, Latvia transferred around 18% of its national budget revenue to
the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1990.