2015 Annual Review of Labour Relations and Social Dialogue Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania DR. AIJA LULLE and MA ELZA UNGURE March 2016  In 2015, the last of the three Baltic States, Lithuania, joined the Eurozone following Estonia and Latvia which had already entered in previous years(2011 and 2014 respectively). Latvia was also holding the Presidency of the EU Council for the first half of 2015.  At the macro level, all three Baltic States demonstrated economic growth in 2015 with annual GDP growth, full-year forecasts, as follows: 1.9 per cent for Estonia, 2.4 per cent for Latvia and 1.7 per cent for Estonia. Inflation was very low and even negative in 2015, hovering around zero per cent in Estonia, 0.2 per cent in Latvia and being negative,-0.8 per cent in Lithuania.  A new Labour Code was introduced in Lithuania which may imply far reaching changes for employees and trade unions. Yet, trade unions still remain rather weak in the Baltic States despite being involved in social dialogue and international cooperation, including access to competitive EU and other(e.g. Norwegian funds) funding for various projects. The main obstacles to greater involvement are lack of financial means and the rather low profile of trade unions in post-socialist countries.  Estonia’s economy is forecast to grow by 2.6 per cent in both 2016 and 2017, while in Latvia the projection is 3 per cent in 2016 and 3.3 per cent in 2017, and Lithuania ’s growth is forecast at 2.9 per cent in 2016 and 3.4 per cent in 2017.