Education, youth and labor market in the era of globalization. Baltic States.

2.  Basic information
 History
 Politics
 Economy
 Education
 Labor market

3. History, Politics
and Economics of
the Baltic States

7.  -1920 Recognized as independent
countries
 -1939 Soviet Union occupies the Baltic
States and installs pro Soviet regimes
 -1990 Baltic States re-declare their
independence
 Stalin and Hitler signed a Non-aggression
Pact (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact)
 In the 1980s, due to a weakened central
power in the USSR, the Baltic States asserted
their autonomy and questioned the legality
of their incorporation within the Soviet
Union.

11. Government Structure
 All three Baltic States are
Parliamentary Democracies
 Latvia and Estonia –President elected
by the Parliament
 Lithuania- President elected by
popular vote

13.  Lithuania's Head of State is President Dalia Grybauskaite who
resigned as an EU Commissioner when she won Lithuania's
Presidential election in May 2009. She is Lithuania's first
woman President.
 Latvia's head of state is President Valdis Zatlers who was
elected in 2007. The Latvian parliament has one chamber
called the Saeima.
 The Estonian head of state is President Toomas Hendrik Ilves,
who represents Estonia in international relations. Political
control lies with the Prime Minister, Andrus Ansip, who leads
a minority coalition consisting of his centre-right Reform Party
and the nationalist Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (PPRP).

15.  Market based economy
 Early 2000s saw the highest expansion/growth in their
economy
 2006 Unemployment below European Union average
 2008 recession in Estonia and Latvia, 2009 in Lithuania
 2011 Estonia adopted euro as its currency
 The economic and social structure of the Baltic states went
through fundamental changes after their joining the USSR.
The Soviet Union took over planning and development and
there was heavy investment in large projects in Estonia and
Latvia and industrialization and urbanization in Lithuania.
They had lower living standards than Europe, but higher than
the USSR.

16.  Postwar socioeconomic policies
transformed all three countries from
predominantly rural societies into largely
urbanized countries.
 In 1939 Estonia had been 66 percent rural;
Latvia, 65 percent; and Lithuania, 77
percent.

17.  The transition to the market based economy
was challenging
 Throughout the 1990s there was an
increase in privatization, national currencies
were reintroduced, and foreign investment
increased.

18.  An important part of Baltic economy is agriculture.
 Potatoes Dairy cattle
 Cereal grains Pigs
 Fodder crops Fish
 Timber
 The Baltic region is not rich in natural resources.
Though Estonia is an important producer of oil
shale (an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary
rock containing kerogen, a substitute for
conventional crude oil), it imports a large share of
mineral and energy resources.

20.  Industry in the Baltic states is prominent, especially
the production of food and
beverages, textiles, wood products, and electronics
and the traditional stalwarts of machine building
and metal fabricating. The three states have the
highest productivity of the former constituent
republics of the Soviet Union.
 The global economic crisis of recent times
damaged the economies of the Baltic States. The
recession in Latvia was the worst in Europe and this
economic crisis led to the fall of its government.
 Latvia needed a €7.5 billion loan from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avoid
bankruptcy in 2009.

21. Source: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia

22.  The Baltic States have a “flat tax” system
which is everybody pays one tax rate
regardless of income. This has been adopted
by several other Eastern European nations
and Russia. (A flat tax system was recently
proposed by Gingrich and Perry during their
campaign).

24. Education, Youth
and Labor Markets
in the Era of
Globalization

56.  http://web.mit.edu/people/fjk/essays/baltics.ht
ml
 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/509
85/Baltic-states
 http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/sovie
tun.html
 http://www.civitas.org.uk/eufacts/FSMS/MS17.ht
m

57.  http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/01/18/t
he-death-of-quot-social-europe-quot/
 Global election
 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080
730_its_a_global_election/
 Flat tax
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/flat_ta
xes_are_big_in_the_former_ussr_have_they_w
orked_20111112/