The war in Ukraine and its impact on the economies of selected EU member states

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on Russian-Ukraine War’s impact of the economies of the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It starts by introducing the topic and what led to this War and its significant to the EU. The discussion shifts to the global relations to Ukraine and Russia, then narrowing down on the EU highlighting dependency on Russian markets. The Baltic states are then discussed due to their similarities of high dependency, close relations to Russia and Ukraine and geographical aspects. The aims of this study are to analyse the impacts of the War on the Baltic economies and their responses to these impacts. The research questions will be studied through available qualitative and quantitative data, mainly gained from Eurostat, IMF reports, European Commission country reports and governmental policies. The impacts and responses of the cases will be then be examined through a comparative case study. The comparative analysis displayed that although all countries were affected, Estonia’s was the most affected economy of the three as it experienced the largest contraction in GDP, highest inflation and highest energy prices. It was also noted that although the Baltics are relatively similar, their responses to the energy insecurity, economic problems and defence uncertainty brought about the War were different.