Estonia still Eastern European country, UN statistics classification doesn’t affect political placement
Estonia’s position in the classification of countries of the United Nations had not changed, and hence there would be no changes concerning its candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, spokespeople for the Estonian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
Over the last few days a wave of social media shares rolled over the Baltic states. Member of the European Parliament for Latvia, Artis Pabriks, had tweeted the United Nations’ revised list of its macro geographical regions that placed Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia among the Northern European countries, and not part of Eastern Europe.
Though traded as a reclassification by enthusiasts, in reality the change dates back to the year 2002, and mainly concerns the UN’s statistics division. In terms of political regions, the Baltic states are still solidly part of Eastern Europe in the eyes of the organization.
“No changes have taken place in the UN’s division of countries by geographical region and regional group as far as Estonia is concerned. According to the classification of countries by geographical region for statistical use by the United Nations Statistics Division, Estonia belongs among countries of Northern Europe. Under the UN classification by regional group, Estonia belongs in the Eastern European Group. These two classifications are not connected with each other and are made for different purposes,” spokesperson for the Estonian Foreign Ministry, Mariann Sudakov, told BNS.
Sudakov added that there were five groups, namely Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Asia-Pacific area, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. Seats on the UN’s different committees and bodies were distributed based on those, and here Estonia still belonged to Eastern Europe.
Estonia announced its bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the period from 2020-2021. It is competing with Romania for the seat, which is assigned to the UN’s Eastern European group of countries.
Editor: Editor: Dario Cavegn
Source: BNS, ERR