IN THE interests of brevity I will give you the three things you need to know about the Baltic each day.
ESTONIA is still beset by devaluation rumours. The more the government and Eesti Pank deny it, the worse it gets. Maybe if they ran around like headless chickens, everyone would suddenly find the story uninteresting.
LATVIA will witness the birth of ‘Godmania’ from Dec. 5 when Ivars Godmanis takes the Prime Ministerial throne. It’s not official yet, but the complete lack of half-way credible alternatives means it must surely be a done deal. He may be chairing the same parish council of a government as Kalvitis but at least he has some character. I hope he doesn’t stop rolling his eyes and clutching his head during debates once he’s in charge. It’s nice to see a politician so convinced that he is surrounded by idiots.
LITHUANIA‘S President Adamkus has won a fairly obscure European of the Year award. Adamkus is a sound bloke and deserves some sort of prize for having been royally and repeatedly shafted by Polish Goblin King Lech Kaczynski over the Ignalina nuclear plant and the power bridge between Poland and Lithuania. Adamkus slogs his guts out trying to do the right thing but is too polite for his own good, meaning that he usually has the sort of pained, world-weary facial expression you would see on a kindly grandad who has just noticed that his granddaughter has a pierced nose and rose tattoo.
