Has eastern Europe too much influence?

Brussels is very anti-Russian at the moment, with opinion correspondingly pro-Baltic and pro-Polish. This stance is often reflected in the views of the local newspaper, the European Voice, which a few weeks ago ran an opinion piece by the former prime minister of Estonia, Maart Laar, saying the move of the Russian “unknown soldiers” in central Tallinn was merited.
It was pushing an open door, given the local mood. And in fact the paper
could have afforded to be a bit contrarian on this occasion, since on balance, I think, elite people in Brussels and in the UK have absorbed the Estonian (and Polish) worldview of Russia/Soviet history in general and applied this matrix of prejudice (right or wrong) to the statues issue in particular. In the EP debate which I sat through only one intervention came in favour of Russia, from a Latvian MEP whom I thought was heroic, and was almost hissed.
The newspaper, read by the Brussels elite, could have given some
highly intelligent Russian nationalist historian a platform, or failing that Anatol Lieven, who is sound on Russia, to put a cat among the pigeons.

There was no sense in the Laar article the fact that both the Estonian head of state, president
Toomas Ilves, and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden, an important regional player, were reportedly against the move of the statue, according to Swedish press reports. As were a majority of Tallinners and a large
majority of its Russian component.
Bildt, who has many connections to eastern Europe, said something wise to the effect of letting
history lie, I can't remember, but I will state an argument which I think he'd approve if he wasn't constrained by the suffocating political correctness towards the Balts afflicting Scandinavians.
Leave the statues because we mustn’t forget, and leave the statues because we have to move on - and show ourselves superior to the regimes before us that famously tried to eradicate, manipulate, redraw the evidence of history left by others.
If Britain had moved all the statues of the murderers and rogues in its history it would start with the Marshal Haig statue in Whitehall and move on to the Cromwell statue outside the palace of Westminster.
They stay; and are part and the fabric and tapestry of the country's history.
If Estonia still exists in a 100 years time - if it hasn't been swept away by 50m British lager louts and French Moroccan unemployeds choosing to settle there under their rights as European citizens - they might regret not heeding the advice of wise old statesmen about leaving the statue in place as symbol, well to their uniqueness, their particular history, really.
Symbols are what you want them to be, and symbols change over time. What is now an unbearable still open wound can be in future a scar worn with rueful wisdom, perhaps even pride. If they were to purge every brick and stone with Estonian blood on it there wouldn't be anything left of the old town whose turrets and battlements Estonians now take pride in and attract tourists with.
But at least I have some sympathy for the Estonian position; it doesn't mean the rest of us - from bigger nations, with different perspectives - have to be led by nose by them. We are allowed to have our perspectives too.
I thought it was absolutely disgusting that Charles Tannock MEP whose countrymen benefited enormously from Russia taking on and defeating 90% of the German warmachine so that the Brits could have their little jolly-ho gentlemen's war in the western desert to suck on for sixty years couldn't bring himself to sound one note of moderation or perspective in the EP debate. An astonishing lack of graciousness towards Russia's 20m war dead.
As often, normal people, on blogs, were a bit more balanced, recognising that for Brits and French and many other Europeans the Russians *were* liberators, both directly and vicariously.
They pulled out of Austria; and would have pulled out of east Germany had they been given a guarantee of neutrality.
(When the UK was first rejected for membership of the Common Market in 1963 Ted Heath told the Macmillan Cabinet there were two main reasons for the failure.
First, De Gaulle was determined to build a French Atom Bomb, and was angry that Britain wouldn't help him with it. Second, Adenauer feared that Britain was tempted by the Soviet offer to end the Cold War - to withdraw from Eastern Europe in return for a permanently disarmed and neutral Germany. This "peace scare" was Adenauer's worst nightmare, since it would have meant his total political eclipse. He preferred Britain to be sidelined in Europe for this very reason.
I think Adenauer was absolutely right in believing that any British government guided by rational self-interest would eventually take up the Soviet offer. Amazingly, Britain never had such a government.)
So, perhaps tant pis for Estonia; not so bad for the rest of us.

One issue that hasn't been explored is that communist oppression wasn't between nations, but from a communist bureaucrat class that transcended nation - over their own peoples. It was highly convenient for these people to drape themselves in a nationalist garb when the wind changed and this became politic. Many of these these are now prominent, including the Estonian PM who moved the statue.

An issue that's really interesting is whether this stance on Russia is a sign of how the east European political class will take over the EU institutions. After all, communism schooled them to excel in a culture of bureaucratic infighting. Supported by an over represented quota of young commission staff from the new member states for whom Brussels is more of an attractive career than for nationals in countries with greater domestic career opportunities, east European ministers might see a virtue in sticking together on every issue, a sense of camaraderie based on a shared past combined with a shared appetite for west European cash handouts. Public opinion in Britain has grumbled a little and said that the reason why east Europeans win the Eurovision song contest is that they have learnt the virtues of total solidarity, voting only for each other and using their strength in nation state numbers to appoint of their members winners and pushing the paymasters of the song contest, the big EU states, take all the bottom places. There were many calls in Britain to pull out completely, since the country faces little prospect if ever asserting itself again. The new constitution gives less power to block decisions.
If EU politics comes to resemble Eurovision song contest
voting, the union’s popularity will surely sink to a new low.