Fundéurae: “Baltic countries”, in lowercase

Madrid, 21 Mar (EFE). The Foundation for Urgent Spanish (FundéURAE), promoted by the EFE Agency and the SAR, recalls that the expressions “Baltic countries” and “Baltic republics” are written entirely in lowercase, although the first word of “Baltic States” does have a capital letter. In the news linked to the fear that Russia will also declare war on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, these turns are seen with unnecessary capital letters: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put the Baltics on alert”, “It seems increasingly obvious that Russia is going to go for the Baltic Republics” or “The Baltic states have also delivered thousands of weapons”. These are merely descriptive denominations that refer to a group of countries bathed by the Baltic Sea, just as, for example, those bathed by the Mediterranean are called “Mediterranean countries”. Although “Baltic States” is also a descriptive name, in this case the first element is capitalized because it is used in the sense of 'sovereign country, recognized as such in the international order'. It is a case of institutional capital letters, such as “Government”, “Administration”, “Church”, etc., which equally affects the singular and plural forms. Therefore, the most appropriate thing would have been to write “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put the Baltics on alert”, “It seems increasingly obvious that Russia is going to go for the Baltic republics” and “The Baltic States have also handed over thousands of weapons”. The FunDéurae (www.fundeu.es), promoted by the EFE Agency and the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), has as its main objective the proper use of Spanish in the media. feu/cg