Driving forces for the formation of environmental policy in the Baltic countries

The article elaborates on the role of international environmental regimes and multilateral environmental agreements in the process of development of environmental policy in the 3 Baltic countries; Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Comparison of emission trends and changes in the state of the environment with reference to international environmental regimes allow one to conclude that there is no clear link between the official accession to environmental conventions and changes in environmental fields. The Baltic countries first joined international environmental regimes dealing with global or regional environmental security, while acceptance of the agreements and accession to regimes seen as more important from the point of view of solving their own environmental problems, took place later. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Baltic countries have seen the international legal instruments in their environmental policies as preventive, rather than curative instruments. Active participation in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) has, on the other hand, substantially contributed to the readiness of the Baltic countries to take the next step in their environmental policy--taking over the environmental policies (Acquis Communautaire) of the European Union.