Estonia’s President, Alar Karis, has declared elections to the European Parliament to be held on 9 June 2024, ERR reports. Registration of candidates will begin on 10 April 2024 and early voting on 3 June 2024. Parties can nominate up to nine candidates each. Altogether 912,000 voters in Estonia are registered for the elections, ERR…
The Estonian government has failed to include a project to open a regular passenger train connection between Tartu and the Latvian capital, Riga, in its long-term budget plans for 2025-2027, ERR reports. The government points to concerns about a competing Latvian proposal that would entail lower costs but less convenient departure times. Nevertheless, the government…
Estonia’s electricity transmission system operator, Elering, has finally located the fault in the EstLink 2 power cable connecting Estonia and Finland, ERR reports. Complexities due to the area’s terrain and the cable’s design mean that repairs will now extend until the end of August 2024, the company announced. Initially, Elering expected the cable to be…
Members of the national defence committee of the Estonian parliament, the Riigikogu, visited Israel and called for closer ties between the two countries, ERR reported. The MPs condemned the Palestinian terrorist organisation, Hamas, and urged Palestinians to reject the group. The Estonian parliamentarians encouraged Israel to consider providing military aid to Ukraine. Also, they highlighted…
The unadjusted gender pay gap in the Baltic States was highest in Estonia in 2022, according to Eurostat data, LSM reported. In Estonia, women’s average gross hourly wage was 21.3% lower than that of men in 2022, which was up from 20.5% in 2021. The gender pay gap stood at 17.1% (14.6%) in Latvia and…
The Estonian government has decided to sell the state’s entire stake in Nordic Aviation Group (NAG), operator of national air carrier Nordica, due to the company’s unprofitability and lack of strategic value, BNS reported. Nordica stopped offering flights from Tallinn in 2019 and now primarily provides subcontracting services. The government expects binding offers for the…
Estonia’s GDP totalled EUR 37.7 billion at current prices in 2023, which was down 3% from 2022, according to data from Statistics Estonia, ERR reported. Robert Müürsepp, national accounts team lead at Statistics Estonia, said that Estonia’s economy was in broad-based recession in 2023, with decline recorded in most major sectors. Information and communication had…
Russia has issued arrest warrants against Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Deutsche Welle reports. This is the first time that Russia has opened a criminal case against an acting foreign head of government. The Russian Interior Ministry’s full database of wanted people, which was leaked to independent Russian media outlet Mediazona, indicated that Kallas and…
Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, ranked the highest in the Baltic States on Serbian database Numbeo’s Quality of Life index in 2024, BNS reported. Tallinn ranked 17th out of 195 cities worldwide. Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, ranked 36th on the index, while the Latvian capital, Riga, ranked 88th. Numbeo’s index assesses various factors affecting quality of life, including…