| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
ON JULY 1 OF THIS YEAR, Russia officially assumed the presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). It so happens that this year the Council is marking its 20th anniversary. This may not be a very long period by historical standards but for an international organization it is quite a mature stage of activity.
Readers will be reminded that the CBSS was established in 1992 on the initiative of then-foreign ministers of Germany and Denmark, H.-D. Genscher and U. Ellemann Jensen. The idea was to overcome the Cold War legacy, remove barriers of bloc-to-bloc confrontation that existed in the region, and promote an atmosphere of trust in relations between the states that had previously been on different sides of the ideological divide. Russia from day one supported the creation of the council, seeing it as a structure capable of effectively restoring the previous community of states with access to the Baltic Sea.
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