LETTONIE - RUSSIE, Traités et documents de base

Tallin May 14, 1989 : Declaration of the Economic Independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

Declaration of the Economic Independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

The process of perestroika in the Soviet Union, now in its fourth year, has failed to curb the economic decline of the country. A deepening crisis is leading to further growth of inflation and deterioration in living standards, and causing negative socio-demographic, moral and psychological trends that may eventually lead to the destabilisation of the political situation.

Up to the present, the central authorities of the country have been seeking a way out of the dead end by resorting to partial measures, while steps aimed at a radical reform of the economic relations are being avoided. The fundamental problems of the economy are still awaiting solution.

Another feint of the 'economic reform' is the draft General Principles of Reforming the Management of Economic and Social Sphere in the Union Republics on the Basis of Expanding Their Sovereign Rights, Self-Management and Self-Financing. The economic mechanism lying at the basis of the General Principles is ineffective, incapable of taking the economy out of the crisis, and falls to promote the republics' economic independence.

The ideological basis of the General Principles is the preservation of the 'strong centre', with only non-essential economic rights being transferred to the republics. This is in contradiction with the status of sovereign republics, and the principles of the final document of the Vienna Conference.

The Baltic Assembly is of the opinion that the programme of economic independence based on the Coordinated Basic Principles of Republic-level Self-Management, worked out by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and adopted on September 23, 1988 in Riga will provide a real foundation for transition to more effective economic relations, to a gradual improvement of the economic situation and, as a result, to a considerable improvement of the people's living standards. However, the leading bodies of the Soviet Union ignore the proposals of the Baltic republics, trying to substitute fully ripened economic reform by verbosity and contradictory principles. A result of this is disillusionment in perestroika among the population of the Baltic republics, rise of anti-centrist sentiments and search for more resolute ways of liberation from the dictate of the 'strong centre'.

In view of the situation, the Baltic Assembly considers it expedient:

1. To declare that the peoples of the sovereign states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will themselves choose their model of socio-economic development and system of economic relations.

2. To demand from the leading bodies of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania the immediate adoption of laws pertaining to the basis of the economic independence of the republics in accordance with the principles laid down in the economic independence (self-management) concepts of the republics.

3. To raise before supreme bodies of state power of the USSR the issue of the adoption of laws concerning the economic independence of the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian SSR, in order 10 guarantee the transition of the republics to economic independence starting from 1990, in accordance with laws adopted by the Supreme Soviets of the republics.

4. To regard the rejection of the concept of step-by-step realisation of economic reform advanced by the Baltic republics as intolerable and as expressing disrespect of the sovereign rights of the Union republics.

Tallinn, May l4th, 1989

On behalf of the Council of Representatives of the Popular Front of Estonia
On behalf of the Duma of the Popular Front of Latvia
On behalf of the Seimas of the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sajudis

Source:
Baltic Assembly, Tallin, May 13-14, 1989, Popular Front of Estonia, Valgus Publishers 1989