Quote Originally Posted by nulle View Post
Hanna - were you against Baltics joining EU too?
No of course not. It's their decision if they want to be in the EU or not. In fact, I campaigned FOR the Eastern Europeans joining the EU, back in the mid 1990s, in a youth movement that was popular at the time. A lot of people were saying "there are too many problems there, too much criminality etc, and it does not fit with the agricultural policy." I felt that was irrelevant, that it would be grossly unfair to exclude Eastern Europe on any of those grounds, and completely against the principles of the EU. This movement was called "Paneuropa", and it had a big part in the changing of public opinion about this across Western Europe. I am all in favour of the EU as long as it helps Europeans and doesn't become some kind of little NATO muppet.

I was against the Baltics joining NATO though, simply because that means having American war ships crusing around in the Baltic Sea, and whatever else they might want to get up to on the shore of the Baltic Sea which is extremely important to Sweden, and to me, as I grew up on its shore. The US has always wanted a foot in there, but they couldn't in the past, due to the USSR and the fact that Sweden and Finland are neutral. But because of the Baltics, now they can come and go as they please.

As far as I am concerned, American warships are no improvement to those of the USSR - and they, at least, actually had a shore to this sea, which the US does not.