russian speakers and freedom of movement in the EU

A lot has been discussed on the effect that Estonian accession into the European Union has had on the Russian population. Prior to the September 2003 referendum, the Russian population living in Estonia had a more positive opinion towards E.U. accession. This can be attributed to three factors: (1) the Russian population felt less connected to the Estonian state, thus they were less concerned about a potential loss of sovereignty following accession; (2) the socio-economic gap between Russians and other member states was greater than the socio-economic gap between Estonians and other member states, thus the Russians saw greater potential for increased living conditions; and (3) [probably most significantly] the Russian population saw opportunity for their economic, political, and social standing to increase with the EU system of conditionality towards Estonia.

However, by 2001, ethnic Estonian favorability towards the EU increased as ethnic Russian favorability decreased. The Russian decrease could be viewed as a result of many different, simultaneously occurring circumstances, including increased amounts of anti-Russian propaganda issued by the Estonian government, a fear that a move towards the west would make family, business, and personal connections with Russia more challenging, and a fear of the increase in prices following accession. In the end, ethnic Russian were considerably less favorable towards EU accession than ethnic Estonians.

In the end, hopes for a major improvement in the living conditions of the ethnic Russians were let down, because the European Union did not hold Estonia accountable for appropriately handling the situations of the Russian minority. However, it is important to acknowledge one extremely important benefit that the Russian population (especially the non-citizen portion of the population) will gain from Estonia joining the EU: when the EU transitional provisions end (most likely 2009) and Schengen border system goes into effect, all residents of Estonia- Russian or Estonian, citizen or non-citizen- will be provided with the right of free travel throughout the entire European Union.