Latvia’s Neoliberal War Against Labor and Industry

"Now running more than twenty years, it is a test for how long voters can be distracted by non-economic factors (e.g., in Latvia, ethnic strains with its Russian-speaking population reflecting resentment against the Soviet occupation) rather focusing on labor, industry, agriculture, or in short, the national interest itself. Eurozone nations for their part defended their own interests, treating the Baltics as a field for exploitation, much as Third World countries were treated a generation earlier. Latvia’s free trade policy left its trade to be shaped by other nations’ protectionist policies, and its economy increasingly dependent on foreign banks (at interest)."

http://michael-hudson.com/2014/05/stockholm-syndrome-in-the-baltics/