Estonia Eurozone. The European Union Agency for large-scale IT systems is based in Tallinn, which started operations at the end of 2012. Estonia held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2017. Since the early 1990s, Estonia has been involved in active trilateral Baltic states co-operation with Latvia and Lithuania, and Nordic-Baltic co-operation with the Nordic countries. The Baltic Council is the joint forum of the interparliamentary Baltic Assembly and the intergovernmental Baltic Council of Ministers. Estonia has built close relationship with the Nordic countries, especially Finland and Sweden, and is a member of
Human rights in Estonia used every international forum where the claims of the violations of human rights in Estonia have been presented. The United Nations Development Programme's forum Development and Transition has discussed the situation of Estonia and Latvia in 2005. James Hughes, a US sociologist from the Trinity College, claimed Latvia and Estonia are both states "captured by the titular ethnic groups", employing a "sophisticated and extensive policy regime of discrimination" against their respective Russophone populations. He names three "pillars" of discrimination: refusal of citizenship, language usage, and participation rights, and claims discrimination is constrained by the "economic dependence on Russophone labour". Nils