The politics of European integration and minority rights in Estonia and Latvia

Abstract This paper explores the nationalising policies of Estonia and Latvia in the wake of independence restoration from the incorporation into the Soviet Union. As in all newly independent postcommu‐nist states, the national question consumed the initial stages of the democratisation process. The case studies provide an example of the EU's political conditionality in promoting conditions in which the resolution of ethnic conflicts becomes possible. The EU's commitment to cohesion, cooperation and multiculturalism is at this stage an elite‐led process, whilst the integration of ethnic groups within states requires a society‐wide readjustment to new institutions.