Northern Dimension to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, the importance of the Northern Dimension has increased considerably: eight EU Member States (Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Sweden) surround the Baltic Sea, and the EU’s shared border with Russia has lengthened. Recent years have seen far-reaching changes in the geopolitical map of northern Europe. The Baltic States regained their independence in 1991. Finland and Sweden joined the EU in 1995, and Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland in 2004. These events greatly increased the Northern and Baltic “presence” of the EU, and substantially lengthened the common border shared by the
Sweden–Finland Sweden–Finland Sweden–Finland (, ) is a Finnish historiographical term referring to Sweden from the 12th century to the Napoleonic wars. In 1809, the realm was split after the Finnish war. The eastern half came to constitute the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, in personal union with Imperial Russia. The term was coined by Finnish historians during the 1920s, but since then there has been an effort to drop it from professional historiography due to its perceived inaccuracy. However, it is often still used in everyday Finnish speech. Although the term has didactic merits, for instance when used in conjunction with