Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

Disintegration of the USSR and join of Baltic States to European Union made this one a border territory between Russia and EU. After the collapse of Former Soviet Union, the new boundary remained almost easy to cross. In the beginning of the 21th century, it became no more fuzzy but rather fixed. Since European enlargement that had taken place in 2004, the crossing has become more regulated. People need visas that meant administrative papers and cost. The evolution of cargo flows has been more contrasted. Economic policies, political stakes and traditional links, are elements to understand East Baltic area. Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave lying by the Baltic Sea, strengthens the interest of the purpose.

The article analyses the independence of children with mental and behavioural disorders, and the importance of its development and background, which creates the preconditions for a better quality of life. Psychomotor development and building up the independence of children with disabilities basically predetermine better conditions for the child’s integration into the community, the reduction of stress and dependence on family members, and better harmony in the family. The child’s psychomotor development covers major areas of child development: gross motor skills, fine motor skills, cognition, perception of language, verbal expression, self-regulation, and social and emotional development. But in terms of mental and behavioural disorders, the formation of skills proceeds in a more complex way. This disorder often manifests itself together with sensory problems: too high/low response, high stress felt, anxiety, and detachment from specific activities/measures, which may result in the delayed formation of independence skills. The development of the independence of a child with a disability is very important when individually selecting a suitable environment and factors that increase the motivation to learn, seek and interiorise newly acquired skills. These skills predetermine the possibilities for a person with a disability to feel independent in their daily activities in the future. Engagement in social interaction is an inevitable and important element of a high-quality daily life. Children with a disability face increased difficulties in their daily routines. Children with poorer social skills undergo social exclusion, and experience more difficulties in perceiving the feelings of other people, recognising and expressing emotions, complying with regulations and norms, and respecting themselves and others.

This article addresses intersections of migration and economic development as one of the most topical contemporary challenges inthe Baltic states. It uses empirical approach to compare governmental responses to recent economic crisis starting in 2008. Articleanalyses, how these responses were reflected in statistics revealing socio economic dynamics within years of crisis and beyond.Methods of comparing statistical and analysing secondary data are applied. All three states have similar future challenges of agingand declining population and see return migration as one of possible solutions to address this challenge. However, the processesin Estonia provide a better ground for its government to claim that the country makes effort to ensure more stable development.Also, the results demonstrate that Estonia displays more different trends, while Lithuania and Latvia are closer to each other in outmigrationtrends.

The Nordic Baltic region (5+3) is now closely interlinked via trade, investment, mobility of people, and banking. All the countries in this group have pursued some form of integration with the European Union (EU). Six of them are EU member states, four of them are members of the euro area, and all of them are within the European Economic Area (EEA) and are Schengen member states. But can these small countries as a group cooperate more closely and perhaps exercise more collective authority in Europe? The Nordic countries and the Baltic States cooperate in the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and the IMF, and six of them are among European NATO member states. When it comes to European integration the lack of common approach complicates their cooperation. Within this group there are internal divisions between the hardcore EU and euro area member states (the Baltics and Finland), EU members (Denmark and Sweden) and EU outsiders (Iceland and Norway). Common pathways for the future cooperation in Europe may be hard to find. Also, the Nordics are high income welfare states, but the Baltics are neoliberal with minimal governments and low-tax regimes. Additionally, external forces continue to challenge the Nordic Baltic region, including revanchist Russian policies threatening Baltic Sovereignty, unpredictable US policies towards NATO as well as reduced military presence in Europe, and dismal EU and euro area post crisis economic performance. All point to a future of uncertainty including both economic and security risks.

In the interwar years, Finland and Estonia were characterised by the fact that in both countries exceptionally broad linguistic and cultural rights were given to national minorities, compared with the situation in the rest of Europe. There were several factors behind this. One was the relationship between ethnic groups from a historical perspective. Another was each country’s internal debate on the kind of social order in general that was to be built. The third was how politics in Finland and Estonia was influenced by international trends and theories on how national minorities should be treated. The article analyses how national minorities were taken into account in the Finnish and Estonian constitutions which held true in the period between the two world wars, and why account was taken precisely in a certain way. At the same time, it considers what kind of views in this regard were presented by different political parties, what kind of debates were held in the parliaments of both countries, and how the matter was dealt with by other significant interest groups.