Europe – a chill wind blowing

From my window in the Foreign Office, you can just about see St James’ Park, and it’s easy on a sunny, spring day to be infused with a sense of optimism and general wellbeing.

But elsewhere in Europe, there is a chill in the air.

I have just returned from Lithuania and Latvia, where memories of the Cold War have been revived by Russia’s blatant aggression in Crimea. People are following in great detail what is going on in Ukraine, and they are worried. And they are not alone: around Russia’s borders, even in states where Moscow might expect to find support, there is a sense of deep unease.

I last visited the Baltics in 2012, when I wrote about the startling transformations in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

In less than two and a half decades, they went from being part of the Soviet Union to modern democracies with some of the fastest-growing economies in Europe.

The scale of change witnessed in living memory is remarkable.

In Riga, Foreign Minister Rinkevics and I laid a wreath at the Freedom Monument, which honours soldiers fallen in the Latvian war of Independence of 1918 to 1920. There are still people in Latvia who remember its opening in 1935. In their lifetimes, they have been ruled by the Soviets, the Nazis, and the Soviets again. They have seen collectivisation, mass deportations, perestroika, independence, and finally EU and NATO membership.

It was at this Monument, in 1987, that a peaceful ceremony organised by the anti-Communist group Helsinki-86 brought together 5,000 people to commemorate the victims of Soviet deportations – the start of the Latvian independence movement.

In Lithuania, memories are equally strong. Every Lithuanian knows about the January Events in 1991, when a crumbling Soviet Union sent troops into Vilnius. In a chaotic three days, fourteen people died and hundreds were injured.

Now, almost a quarter of a century later, Moscow is flexing its muscles once again.

In November last year, before the Eastern Partnership Summit, Russia banned Lithuanian dairy exports and closed the Kaliningrad border to Lithuanian freight for a month. Two weeks ago, Russia announced it had suspended the export of one million tonnes of Russian cargo through the Lithuanian seaport of Klaipeda.

But these are sovereign independent countries with thriving economies living under European democratic values. Times have changed.  There is no turning back the clock.

In Latvia and Lithuania, I stressed that the UK will stand firmly with its NATO and EU allies. A peaceful, prosperous Europe is in all of our interests, including the people of Russia.  It’s in no one’s interests to revive the Cold War, which is why it is so important to get real negotiations going between Russia and Ukraine.

The longer this crisis goes on, and the longer it takes for Russia’s leadership to realise that there is a cost to flouting international rules, the more Russia stands to lose as businesses decide to invest elsewhere, talented Russians choose to build new lives overseas, and Russia’s international credibility seeps away.