Along with the official public diplomacy that is provided for by the state, people’s diplomacy can be used as a complementary tool that is sufficient for promoting the interests of the country or for contributing to the creation of a positive reputation for the country. Such a concept had already been in place during the time of the Soviet Union. This was when people’s diplomacy was directly financed by the state and, with some few exceptions, totally dependent on the state, as it was part of its entire strategic approach in the international arena. In modern Russia, people’s diplomacy has not always gone hand in hand with the official public diplomacy and has sometimes even run counter to official foreign policy.
In this chapter, the transformations of the people’s diplomacy and human dimension of the international cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) during the last three decades is considered. The material and logic of this chapter is based on the author’s experience while working at the Council for Baltic Sea State’s Secretariat in Stockholm, Sweden. When talking about the BSR, the following countries are considered to be a part of it both geographically and/or ethnically: five Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden; Germany and Poland (prior those parts of the countries that are adjacent to the Baltic Sea); three Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; and the Russian Federation (north-western—NW—part of Russia).
People-to-People Diplomacy and Managing International Relationships
Many of the divides and challenges that face the world, ranging from the local to global scale, have seen traditional diplomacy and politics fail to solve. In order to heal these divides, an increasing level of enthusiasm and hope have been placed on the role of public diplomacy, through being seen as a more credible and popular means of resolving these issues (Payne, 2009a, p. 487). Exchanges involving citizens across borders is an effective means of connecting people and ideas in an effort to generate influence; it is also increasing the cost-effective means of engaging in people-to-people diplomacy that is supported by advances in new communications technologies (facilitating those connections).1 An Oxford reference defines the concept and practice of “people-to-people diplomacy is a transnational conflict-resolution strategy, underpinning the role that private citizens may play in mitigating hostile interstate relations.”2 There are differing ways of conceiving and defining this form of diplomacy.
Citizen diplomacy or people’s diplomacy is the political concept that average citizens can engage as representatives of a country or a cause either inadvertently or by their own design (United States Department of State. Retrieved 23 August 2016).
Citizen diplomacy is a crucial and highly effective tool in times of political tension, especially when official channels are either unreliable from the point of view of foreign communities or are ineligible to act abroad. It can be realized in many forms, such as cultural exchanges, professional and expert relationships, academic and youth exchanges, cooperation at the level of twin cities and municipalities, cooperation among civic organizations, and international athletic events. “People diplomats” can be any kind of individual, including, but not limited to, students, travellers, representatives to different professions, artists, and business people. One of the often-stated advantages of people-to-people diplomacy is the potential of greater credibility and ease in working with a target audience, especially when there is no governmental involvement and therefore agenda setting or controlling function.
However, both in concept and practice, it is necessary to include the government as it is a significant stakeholder. There are, simultaneously, advantages and disadvantages to a formal government-led public diplomacy approach. Advantages can include, by working with government officials, access to specific publics and support for the implementation of projects (including financing). Official cooperation can also ensure credibility within the public sphere of the country concerned. This can include greater press coverage in traditional print and electronic media. There is a flip side, the most obvious of which is the possible distrust in the government-supported public diplomacy programmes by the intended target audience. As such, there is a risk of the erosion of credibility and trust, and the programme in spite of its intentions may be seen as propaganda and not in the interests of the local population (Payne, 2009b, p. 603). The intention of people-to-people diplomacy is to engage pro-actively, between different stakeholders to achieve a common good.
People-to-people diplomacy requires a broad spectrum of stakeholders to actively engage in a collaborative project in order to meet common goals as the basis of their mutually beneficial relationship. Cowan and Arsenault (2008, p. 21) stress that “collaborative projects almost without exception include dialogue between participants and stakeholders, but they also include concrete and typically easily identifiable goals and outcomes that provide a useful basis and structure upon which to form more lasting relationships.” People-to-people diplomacy can, therefore, be a means to the realization of the management and governance of human security.
There are three levels of peace-making diplomacy: the upper-level where political elite diplomacy takes place; at mid-level public diplomacy interaction between political elites and ordinary people; and the lower-level people-to-people diplomacy that witnesses interactions among ordinary people (Handelman, 2012, p. 2). Traditionally, human security has been the preserve of governments; however, this is increasingly being called into question owing to a lack of capacity or lack of interest in solving issues and events. One of the emerging conclusions in this setting is that governments are increasingly being required to work more closely with the non-governmental sector to promote human security. Communication and work on human security from the grassroots level is better placed to deal with the fundamental problem. This form of activism is increasingly being enabled and supported through the development and use of information technology (Axworthy, 2001), which enables dialogues and collaboration to take place in order to create and maintain international networks and relationships.
There are various possible modes of interaction in people-to-people diplomacy that create active interaction between the sides, such as dialogue groups, educational projects, scientific collaborations, multinational workshops, and partnership in peace-making grassroots organizations. This interaction can be effective in building collaborations and coalitions. However, when not including governmental elements the scale of the activity is quite small and limited in nature, which can mean that any spirit of change at the grassroots level may not transfer to the operational political level (Handelman, 2012, p. 2). When operationalized within the context of public diplomacy, the gap between the political elite and the ordinary person can be narrowed.
People-to-people diplomacy has a very special role and specific features when it comes to neighbouring societies that belong to the different countries. People from neighbouring geographical areas have always been united by common concerns, such as those of air and water quality, mobility, diseases, civil security, and striving for natural communication among neighbours. People naturally strive to work together and find effective solutions to challenges in order to make their region a safer and more comfortable place for all citizens.
The Landscape of the Cooperation Structures and Platforms in Baltic Sea Region Dealing with People’ Diplomacy in the 1990s–2000s
Friendship Societies
An All-Union Culture Society with Foreign Countries (Rus. abbrev. VOKS) was established in 1925, transformed in 1958 into the Union of the Soviet Friendship Societies for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (Russian abbrev. SSOD), and then afterwards in 2008 it was changed to the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and the International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudichestvo).
The friendship societies of the Soviet Union were based on memberships from the different organizations that were playing the role of “people ambassadors” like museums, universities, enterprises, as well as others that are attractive for foreign audiences. The majority of the friendship societies abroad were built with strong support from the Soviets and were financed by the Soviet state. For that reason, many of them ceased to exist in their original form after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
When talking about the BSR, the Finland–Russia Society can be mentioned here as an exception. The establishment of the friendship society in Finland had been very much supported by the Finnish Government and was founded in 1944, less than a month after the Moscow Armistice that ended the Continuation War between Finland and the USSR. This Society promoted the signing of the Finno-Soviet Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, which then became the basis for Finnish–Soviet relations from 1948 through to 1992. The Society is active, influential, and is still in demand of the local community in comparison to the many other re-established friendship societies in the Nordic countries, where they are unpopular among citizens and are often perceived as marginalized groups of former communist regime supporters.
Despite the many outdated methods of the SSOD structure, some concepts can still be taken into consideration. For example, the strong focus on working and having links with foreign elites and policymakers. This applies especially when those, who are invited formally by non-governmental organizations “NGO” were able to perform as individuals sharing their personal views in different kinds of debates. Secondly, it would never have been possible to organize many of the very visible events without the strong financial support from the state. These events include things such as cultural exhibitions, concerts, and wide-scale youth exchanges.
After the cold war years, the beginning of 1990s with its spirit of open borders became a period of great inspiration for international cooperation on the people-to-people level as well; schools, universities, newly established NGOs, cultural institutions, businesses, and cities got the impulse to create relationships with their colleagues abroad. For NW Russia, thanks to its geographical proximity and close contacts with neighbouring countries, has enabled it to develop especially intensively. On the other hand, the economic situation of Russia at that time did not allow any financial support to be given to the domestic actors to develop these relations. Consequently, it led to complete dependence on foreign donors and their priorities. For the sake of justice, it must be noted that many of them did strive to consider the interests of their Russian partners, while still prioritizing their own goals for the main applicants of foreign funds. Huge amounts of the budget of the foreign grants had been intended to cover their own services and products.
Thanks to the first international projects in the 1990s, not only the joint Cross-Border-Cooperation (TACIS) projects but also the cooperation projects paid for with foreign grants, many Russian institutions received decent modern equipment: the first fax machines, printers, computers, and later the first laptops and mobiles. Since Russia had been considered a “development” country, no contribution in cash had been required from Russian partners, but rather only contribution “in kind,” which meant the usage of their existing office premises and infrastructure.
Despite Russia’s level of dependence, many of the first projects of the 1990s were generally positive, which paved the way to knowledge and experience exchanges, thus widening the scope of vision, establishing closer people-to-people relationships, and facilitating intercultural dialogues. If during the time of the Soviet Union, international contacts and friendships were available for narrow groups of selected actors, during the 1990s, these became open for far wider audiences.
When considering the conditions of economic growth and stability in Russia, it was the beginning of the 2000s that Russia ceased to be a country in considered undergoing development and the requirements of many, though not all, foreign donors changed. Russian partners required contributions in cash as well, which significantly reduced the capability of Russian institutions to take part in joint international projects. This was at the same time that the dependence on domestic actors to contribute their cost of participation in the international projects increased. In many cases, it was the local municipalities’ budget, businesses, or some other “richer” institution that could afford such a financial contribution, which did not necessarily coincide with the competencies required for the project implementation. Such an approach became very challenging for smaller organizations and NGOs, which often possessed the necessary competence and expertise, for instance, in the fields of social care and the environment. The financial support from the Russian state during this time remained very limited or absent entirely. Access to financial support is selective and dependent on personal contacts. At the same time, the people ambassadors from the cultural sphere, starting in the 2000s, gained access to the domestic sponsors from businesses striving to be visible in international activities and willingly provided sponsorship for events such as joint concerts, concert tours, exhibitions, or other similar events.
The Russian “foreign agent” law, officially “On Amendments to Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation regarding the Regulation of the Activities of Non-profit Organizations Performing the Functions of a Foreign Agent,” introduced in 2012 by legislators, but not actively enforced until 2013, negatively influenced the people-to-people contacts and joint projects in neighbouring countries, since they were and still are very much dependent on joint international projects. The overwhelming majority of these projects are very far from any kinds of “political activity” and are mostly within pure humanitarian spheres. However, the local authorities and NGOs were scared by formulations in the law, which, due to their lack of clarity, allowed for misinterpretation. This caused them to prefer to avoid projects or international activities that could potentially cause problems. At this cross-border dimension of people diplomacy, the law caused damage to the local communities which could be used, especially in times of tension as valuable resources to preserve people-to-people level relationships.
The Baltic Sea Region and the countries which belong to it either geographically or ethnically are very diverse due to their historical and cultural backgrounds, but also with regard its socio-economic developments. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many families, friends, and partners had been divided by state borders, which especially concerns the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The relationship for three decades experienced different times: from the complete denial of common roots and language to the realization of the economic benefits of knowledge of the Russian language, especially in connection with the opportunity to work in the Russian market and on Russian clients.
The Expanded Amount of Cooperation Structures Appearing in 1990s in the Baltic Sea Region
The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) was established in 1992. In the beginning, only two members of the CBSS were European Union (EU) members—Denmark and Germany—and it were these countries that established the Council with the aim to ease the transition to a new international landscape of the BSR. The initiative was taken by the then foreign ministers of Denmark and Germany, Uffe Elleman-Jensen and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, respectively. They stated that “in light of political changes in Europe, the dream was to create a forum, which could serve as a driving force behind political and economic stabilization and cooperation in the new Baltic Sea region.” According to the Copenhagen Declaration, the founding document of the CBSS, the goal was “to strengthen the cohesion among these countries, leading to greater political and economic stability, as well as a regional identity.” The Council was a first attempt at building confidence and relations based on trust in regard to the new political realities of the region. By the end of the 1990s and the mid-2000s, the situation in the Region had dramatically changed by the majority of the CBSS member states entering the EU. Currently, there are only three CBSS member states that are not EU member states. Thus, the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) has fulfilled many of the objectives set in 1992and remains a structure with a rather unique potential, which especially applies to its comprehensive membership, encompassing EU members and non-members, including Russia, as well as the European Union. No organization, other than the CBSS, currently has the mandate to initiate and organize a high-level political dialogue within the region. Having two key directions in the activity—political dialogue and practical cooperation through the facilitation of joint project activity—enables them to complement and gain from each other. The CBSS established its own project support facility fund, very much designed for the “people” diplomat actors, including NGOs from all CBSS Member States. The CBSS three long-term priorities, which were revised in 2014, are Regional Identity, a Sustainable and Prosperous Region, and a Safe and Secure Region, envisaging the involvement of both governments and civic actors. Apart from the revision and streamlining of priorities in 2014, there was a realization that the CBSS on the approach to 2020 still needed to decide what it was best placed to achieve from 2020 onwards towards 2030. For that reason, the CBSS Group of Wise Men and Women entitled the “CBSS Vision Group” was established in Reykjavik on 20 June 2017 to solve this apparent connection between what has been achieved, what is being accomplished currently, what is the potential moving forwards, and what has to be updated. The foreign ministers of the member states and a High Representative of the European Union invited the CBSS to appoint an independent group of wise women and men with the task to elaborate a report with recommendations for a vision for the Baltic Sea Region beyond 2020 and especially on the future role of the CBSS. The Vision Group’s work has resulted in the Vision for the Baltic Sea Region beyond 2020. This report was presented on 18 June 2018 in Stockholm at the meeting of CBSS foreign ministers. The member states expressed their continued support for the mission of the CBSS while also emphasizing the need to focus on restoring trust in the region.3
The Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) actively entered the arena of international cooperation in the BSR by opening their first office in Russia in St. Petersburg in 1995. The NCM offered a great opportunity for financial support for people-to-people diplomacy actors from NW Russia in fields where civil organizations had been very active, such as the environment, working to combat human trafficking, social care, culture, gender equality, and human rights, providing a wide scope of instruments for different kinds of studies, visits, and exchanges for Russian representatives to Nordic countries. It was basically the only existing financial instrument that supported the involvement of the civil society organizations from the entire BSR, with the only exception being Germany. It did not offer much large funding but it was sufficient for NGOs to create joint projects with. Over a period of almost twenty-five years, the NCM has established several offices in NW Russia in Petrozavodsk, Kaliningrad, and Archangelsk. In 2015, the NCM had to suspend the Russian office’s work as it was being included into the list of “international agents.”4
In 2001, the Baltic Sea NGO Forum was established in the framework of the CBSS and has since proved its value as a unique platform for a wide, cross-sectorial dialogue aiming to bring together NGOs, politicians, decision-makers, and academia. It has worked to improve cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region by making common efforts towards collaboration on issues of vital importance. One significant achievement of the Forum is that it is no longer just an event, but rather the BS NGO Forum has grown into the BS NGO Network.5 It now has the potential to become a sustainable framework for NGO cooperation in the region, if not for the lack of financial support and its dependency on the conditions of each of countries, which currently remains unequal.
European Union-Russia, the Regional Dimension
The enlargement of the EU and NATO in 2004 has fundamentally changed the geopolitical landscape of the Baltic Sea Region. Since 2014, new geopolitical realities have emerged affecting regional cooperation and trust among the countries in the region has decreased. The confidence building and problem-solving capacities of the international and regional institutions demanded new and reinforced approaches. An increase in military presence and activity in the region implied the risk of turning the region, which should be based on peace and cooperation, into one of new confrontations. The promotion and facilitation of people-to-people contacts have become more difficult in an era of increasing distrust among nations. While civil society in the region remains strong, it is in the process of transformation, and as a result, its contributions are not always translated into a language that policymakers are able to process and take account of. This hinders the use of the creative potential of individuals and civil society actors within the context of regional cooperation.
Since 2014, the referendum in Crimea and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine have seriously affected the bilateral political dialogue between the EU and Russia. As a result, some of the policy dialogues and mechanisms of cooperation are temporarily frozen, and sanctions directed at promoting a change in Russia’s actions in Ukraine have been adopted.
However, Russia remains a natural partner of the EU and is still its largest neighbour, having a border over 2500 km long in the Baltic Sea Region. For the EU, Russia will always remain a strategic partner in combating regional and global challenges. Coming back to the history of EU–Russia relationships, the launching of the Northern Dimension (ND) initiative for the EU in Rovaniemi by the then Prime Minister of Finland, Paavo Lipponen, in September 1997 played a crucial role for the future development of the region. The political purpose of the initiative was to prepare the European Union and the Baltic—Northern region—for the next round of European Union enlargement. The political purpose was obviously not the only one purpose, and it was not by occasion that the ND had been initiated by Finland. Finnish companies have had a long experience in doing business with the Soviet Union and were not going to give up these positions, even in modern Russia.
That’s why one of the key elements of the proclaimed Northern Dimension initiative was the creation of a healthy business framework and the removal of existing trade barriers. This project-oriented approach was put forward as an appropriate solution. The two big scale projects should be mentioned in this context: the upgrading of the railway between Helsinki and St. Petersburg which reduced the travel time to a bit more than three hours and reduced the time needed for border and customs control by doing it during the trip. As to the investments needed for infrastructure, billions of Finnish marks had been solely invested from the Finnish side. The costs soon paid off with a significant increase in the flow of travellers, both leisure and business which positively affected economic development on both sides of the border. The train, which was named Allegro, became the very first fast train in Russia.
promote dialogue and concrete cooperation;
strengthen stability, well-being and intensified economic cooperation; and
support economic integration, competitiveness, and sustainable development in Northern Europe.
In addition to the four ND Partners, namely the EU, Russia, Norway, and Iceland, the EU member states in their national capacity, the Regional Councils, the Arctic Council (AC), the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC), the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), the Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM), International Financial Institutions (IFIs)—for example, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB), and the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO), as well as other financial institutions—universities, research centres, the business community, Canada and the United States as observers, and Belarus, in practical cooperation, also participated. Thereby, the policy covers a broad geographic area—from the European Arctic and Sub-Arctic to the southern shores of the Baltic Sea and countries from, or in the vicinity of, north-west Russia in the east and Iceland and Greenland in the west.
environment (NDEP),
public health and social well-being (NDPHS),
transport and logistics (NDPTL), and
culture (NDPC).
Each ND Partnership has the secretariat in countries of Baltic Sea Region and actively involves a large number of the regional actors, including regional organizations and cultural institutions, local and regional authorities, the academic and business communities, civil society governments, and academia, which in this way strengthens the people-to-people level of regional cooperation. Thus, the political crisis could affect the activities of ND partnerships, causing financial and even thematic limitations, as they work to accomplish their tasks.
Through the enlargement of the Union, Kaliningrad became a Russian enclave inside the Union. Russia and the European Union started working on practical solutions to avoid new barriers for free movement of people and goods in the region. In 2012, an agreement between the governments of the Russian Federation and Poland on local border traffic entered into force, which led to intense economic growth on both sides of the border with the establishment of small companies in trade and tourism, such as shops, restaurants, and hotels, the diminishment of unemployment, and the contribution to the socio-economic developments of the bordering regions. In 2015, Russians spent US$75 million in Poland, and Polish people in Russia spent US$105 million. Unfortunately, this favourable economic situation stopped in July of 2016 with the abolishment of visa-free regime agreement. The overall political context operates contrary to the obvious advantages and mutual benefits of the cross-border relationships in the region.
A significant step in consolidating the resources of EU-Member States from the BSR countries has been taken by establishing, in 2009, “The European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR)”—the first macro-regional strategy in Europe. A couple of years later, in 2012, the joint group with the purpose of finding the common areas and possible synergies between the North-Western Russian Strategy 2020 and the EUSBSR had been established. The joint group functioned under the leadership of Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for the European Neighbourhood Policy, and Igor Slunyaev, the former minister of the Ministry of regional development of RF. The areas for mutually beneficial cooperation have been defined as innovation/science, ecology including agriculture, transport including maritime safety, culture and tourism, and people-to-people contacts, including social, health, education, and youth. The joint group ceased to exist after 2014 leaving these areas highly relevant for regional cooperation and offering good opportunities to benefit the development of the entire region. Basically, the people-to-people contacts are lying exactly in the plane of the directions defined by the joint group, reflecting the overall perspectives of the EU–Russia cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region.
One of the major actors in the BSR, involving the people-to-people format of cooperation, is The Baltic Sea States Sub-regional Cooperation (BSSSC), founded in Stavanger, Norway, in 1993, and it has acted as a political network for decentralized authorities (sub-regions) in the Baltic Sea Region. Its participants are the regional authorities of the ten Baltic Sea states: Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Russia. The Cooperation in the Barents Euro-Arctic region was launched in 1993 on two levels: the intergovernmental Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC) and the interregional Barents Regional Council (BRC). The overall objective of Barents cooperation has been sustainable development. The Barents Regional Council united fourteen member counties and a representative of the indigenous peoples in the northernmost parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and north-western Russia. The BEAC was established in 1993 with the signing of the Kirkenes Declaration, the regional representatives, together with the indigenous peoples, signed a cooperation protocol that established the Regional Council for the Barents Euro-Arctic Region with the same objectives as the BEAC, to support and promote cooperation and development in the Barents Region.
During the Cold War, the Barents region was an area of military confrontation. The underlying premise was that the close cooperation could secure long-term political stability and reduce possible tensions. This objective has been successfully achieved. The Barents cooperation fostered a new sense of unity and closer contact among the people of the region, who are successfully going through the hard times of political tension.
The Union of the Baltic Cities (UBC), founded in Gdańsk, Poland, in 1991 by 32 cities of the BSR, has now expanded to 107 cities from 10 different countries of the Region. It is a network that facilitates human connections and mobilizes the shared potential of the member cities for democratic, economic, social, cultural, and environmentally sustainable development in the Baltic Sea Region. With the purpose of promoting, developing, and strengthening cooperation and exchange of experiences among the cities in the Baltic Sea Region, it acts on behalf of the cities and local authorities in common matters towards regional, national, European, and international bodies by advocating the common interests of the local authorities in the region and by contributing to joint Baltic identity, cohesion, and common understanding in the region.
With all the diversity of this regional cooperation, each organization strives to avoid duplication and find its niche, thus comes the question of the added value for each of the cooperation structures in the Region, often in the context of the overlap with EU-formats dealing with very similar issues. Most often the answer is found in the composition of membership, having Russia as a member is an obvious advantage for all cooperation platforms, mentioned above, in the BSR. By having all the countries of the region on-board, it makes a comprehensive approach in meeting current challenges, for the sake of the regional development and the welfare of the citizens, possible.
Despite the variety of the cooperation platforms in the Region, the peoples’ diplomacy and its actors lack the financial instruments covering the participation from the entire region; most existing funds are linked to the EU BS Strategy and therefore support only the EU Member States, some of these funds exclude participation from Germany (NCM and Swedish Institute). The EU-Russian CBC programme finances only bilateral projects from physically bordering areas, the bigger Interreg BSR programme, where Russia, due to its delay in joining the agreement with the EU, became a part of the programme only at third (last) call, and is not available for most of the institutions in the Region due to the limited number of potentially supported projects and the complicated procedure of project applications. The CBSS has its project support facility fund covering all the Member States, but it has a limited capacity since it was designed to support only very small “seed money” projects; the total amount of the fund is €1 million for three priorities for three years. Primarily, such spheres of people’s diplomacy, such as education and culture, suffer a lot from this unfavourable situation with funds.
Conclusion
Political tension in Russia’s relations with Western countries, starting in 2012 and deepening in the spring of 2014 due to the crisis in Ukraine and the referendum in Crimea, brought times of severe endurance for people-to-people relationships. In the Baltic Sea Region, the situation can be compared with a many-layer cake; on one hand, long traditions of partnership and also personal friendships among municipalities, cultural institutions, NGOs, and businesses performed as a safety bag to maintain the high level of interaction; on the other hand, the general negative political context could not but affect the regional cooperation in the BSR—many joint cooperation programmes, even in Northern Dimension’s partnership, became either frozen or cancelled, organizations’ budgets were cut off in parts foreseen for international cooperation on both sides. The law “on international agents” reduced, as mentioned above, the number daring to openly receive financial support in the framework of joint projects. With some exceptions, the EU–Russia CBC programmes 2014–2020, available for the limited number of actors, were started with a delay and were subjected to a lengthy approval procedure.
The potential of people’s diplomacy in Russia remains underestimated and is not fully used. The resources of the state-supported organizations created specifically to act in this field remain scattered, facing a lack of coordination and a common approach. Most of them are tasked to work with compatriots abroad or for the promotion of studies on the Russian language. Having all respect to the importance of these tasks, activities in the field of people’s diplomacy cannot be reduced solely to these two components. One has to admit that compatriots are not always able to influence public opinion among foreign communities and are sometimes not even recognized as a part of them. When regarding language issues, very few enthusiasts desire to learn a language for the sake of culture as the majority perceives language as an instrument to be used in the context of their life—be it business or personal goals. No matter how many Russian language classrooms do exist, interest will not just appear. In the situation when the obvious need cannot be found, the motivation to learn the (Russian) language will be low; in another word, language studies is a “with following” activity which should be “warmed up” with some special interest and purpose.
The support to non-state actors is insufficient and has a very fragmental coverage of the foreign countries, and the majority of support goes to foreign communities from countries with a friendly orientation towards Russia. More efforts towards supporting people-to-people relationships in Western countries with a more challenging environment would be appropriate. All that concerns in full extent the countries of the BSR.
A special financial instrument for the support of the joint projects and initiatives in regional cooperation facilitating people’s diplomacy could be offered from the Russian side, being available to both Russian actors of the people’s diplomacy and for the foreign actors of people’s diplomacy. Such financial instruments, underlining their special mission to maintain and develop the human dimension of the regional cooperation, despite political tensions, could perform as an effective tool to complement the public diplomacy provided by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the visible contribution to the regional development, creating a spirit of trust and good neighbourhood.
Close relations have been maintained between the countries of the Baltic Sea Region from very old times up to the present day. In the interaction landscape, cooperation on the people-to-people level could play a critically important role, making a significant contribution to both the stability and the favourable social climate of the region, diminishing the risk of conflicts, and decreasing tensions. This is done through the promotion of traditions of good neighbourhood and mutual trust and tolerance, things that are beneficial to all the countries and citizens. For this reason, both civil society organizations and governments should work together to support and strengthen the public diplomacy level of regional cooperation.