Today “The Baltic Way” corridor will be inaugurated in the European Parliament building in Brussels.

Today “The Baltic Way” corridor will be inaugurated in the European Parliament building in Brussels.

Henceforth one of the main corridors in the European Parliament will be known as “The Baltic Way”, in commemoration of the demonstration by the three Baltic countries on 23 August 1989, which became an emblematic event in the Baltic countries’ regaining of independence.

One of the initiators of “The Baltic Way” corridor, ECR member Roberts Zile says: “The symbolic meaning of “The Baltic Way” cannot be overestimated. It showed not only the unity of the Baltic countries in their way towards independence, it was also a symbol of the will of all the countries in Central and Eastern Europe to reunite with the rest of Europe, severing the ties of the totalitarian communist regime. It showed that the will of the nations, not the individual efforts of dissidents or the political games in the corridors of the communist regime, was the cause of great change in the Soviet area of influence. We all know the result – a united Europe.”

On 23 August, 1989, nearly 2 million people from the three Baltic countries joined hands in a 600 kilometre long chain from Tallinn to Vilnius, going through Riga, in commemoration of the so called Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939. The Pact split Central and Eastern Europe into areas of influence for Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR and led to the loss of independence for the Baltic countries. However, the resonance created by The Baltic Way far surpassed expectations.

“I can only be pleased that this corridor in the European Parliament in Brussels will henceforth affirm the importance of this historic event for all of Europe,” stresses R. Zile.