No milk for the bear: The impact on the Baltic states of Russia's counter-sanctions

Abstract

The Russian government banned in August 2014 imports of different food and agricultural products from the European Union as a countermeasure to sanctions introduced by the EU and several other countries after Russia's actions in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. This paper assesses the effect of Russia's counter-sanctions on the economies of the Baltic states using different statistics sources and an international input-output model, while taking into account possible data problems in international trade data due to re-exports. The amount of trade affected by Russia's counter-sanctions varies across the Baltic states. In 2013, the exports of goods affected amounted to 2.6% of GDP in Lithuania, 0.4% of GDP in Estonia, and 0.3% of GDP in Latvia, but re-exports are included in these numbers. The overall impact of the sanctions on GDP once intra-EU supply chains are taken into account is below 0.5% of GDP in all the Baltic states.