5 September 2011 (BNS)

Marju Lauristin, editor-in-chief of the Estonian human development report said at the presentation of the report that Baltic countries differed from the other European countries in that we were constantly the last in terms of the residents' social protection.

"The mentality of social insurance in the Baltic countries is the same, there are differences only in details. Universal schemes dominate and problems are solved in a complex way, not on the basis of individual cases," Lauristin said and added that it was by this approach that the countries actually spent more money on social protection.

Lauristin said at the presentation of the report on Monday that the main aim of the study was to establish whether the existence of a joint Baltic path was was a metaphor of the past or not. Generally the report shows that the development of the three Baltic countries had been similar and significantly different from that of other countries. "We had to struggle out of the Soviet Union, which gave us a strong shock. The later path has been upward," Lauristin said.

In Estonia, he said, there had been consistency in changes compared with Latvia and Lithuania, relatively smaller smaller plexus of politics and the economy and a strong bias to the Nordic countries.

"The fact that Estonia has run ahead in several issues from Latvia and Lithuania is not a matter of praize, it is also a debt and an obligation. "Estonia could be the initiator for the Baltic team that would certainly achieve more together.