Baltic Joint Issue – 100 Years of Independence

The three Baltic member states are symbolically depicted as a braid, bound together by their shared history — a common past, present, and future. A stylised numeral marking the centenary and the heraldic symbols of all three member states are also featured. On the left side the issuing country "EESTI", on the right the year of issue "2018". The coin design was chosen by public vote across all three Baltic countries.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are bound by a history with few parallels: three states that declared independence within days of one another in November 1918, lost it together under Soviet occupation, and regained it together in 1991. For Estonia, the proclamation of the republic on 24 February 1918 was not merely a political act but the culmination of a long national awakening that had begun in the 19th century with the Estonian national movement. The independence of 1918 created, for the first time, a modern Estonian state with its own constitution, currency, and institutions — a foundation that the restoration of statehood after 1991 explicitly drew upon.

The close bond among the three Baltic states remains visible today in shared political positions, coordinated defense policy, and a unified stance within the European Union and NATO. Historically, this solidarity is rooted not least in the shared experience of the Soviet annexation of 1940, which affected all three countries equally, and in the Baltic Way of 1989, when around two million people formed a human chain stretching from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius. To mark the 100th anniversary of their declarations of independence, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania jointly issued their first shared 2-euro commemorative coin in 2018 — a rare occurrence in the history of euro coins, underscoring the special bond among the three nations.