The national minorities resolution

Estonia and Latvia believe Russia tries to use the national minorities issue to interfere in processes inside the EU and NATO. The 13th session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) opened in Edinburgh in the beginning of July. The assembly passed the resolution about national minorities, originally initiated by Russia. At first the resolution was called "About the situation with national minorities in Latvia and Estonia." Obviously, the delegates from both Latvia and Estonia could not like such a title. The majority of EU deputies supported their initiative to change the title of the resolution and to amend its text. The main goal of amendments was to cut the mentioning of Latvia and Estonia. The Parliamentary Assembly has finished its work now, but several Latvian and Estonian politicians are still anxious about the national minorities resolution. The two countries are not happy even with the passed variant of the document, which did not focus attention on the national minorities in the Baltic republics.