The rise of Eurosceptic populism in Estonia after the EU accession

This research reviews the Estonian path towards European integration after the EU accession in 2004 and studies how media has influenced the public opinion during the process of integration. The goal of was to create a basis for further research by identifying processes that influenced narrative-building on Europeanization since Estonia joined the EU. In the introductory part, we focus on the impact of general narratives. Many identity narratives related to country’s history have played an important part in developing pro-European discourses in Estonia. Due to country’s historic memory, the membership in the European Union has been widely considered as an alternative to the influence of Russian Federation. For analysing the impact of Europeanization at different times, five milestones have been established. The first milestone is set to the years 2003-2004, when Estonia joined the European Union. The second milestone refers to the years 2007-2009, just when Europe was at the dawn of economic crisis, but Estonia became a target of Russia’s aggressive ambitions characterized by the Bronze soldier crisis in Tallinn of 2007. The following milestone is set by migration crisis 2014-2016, which even though had no practical effects on Estonia, nevertheless strongly influenced public opinion and political processes. During this period, the populist wave reached Estonia and strengthened Eurosceptic views in the country. The last milestone of 2020-2021 refers to the current crisis produced by the spread of coronavirus and COVID-19 disease. Subsequently we have listed the most important factors to be emphasized while analysing social and political processes in Estonia and studying the impact of European values in Estonia. First, there has always been a more Eurosceptic or even isolationist side of the society, which was quite invisible for a long time, but lately became more organized which simultaneously brought political success. Second, a Russophone community in Estonia is affecting its social stability and their integration problems have been also a long-time concern in Estonian political discourses. This community is socially more conservative and often shares different values than the Estonian community. Third, a security factor with indirect security guarantees Estonia expected to achieve through EU accession have also played an important role, in particular to reduce potential political and economic influence of the Russian Federation to Estonia.