Estonia: PM Kallas refuses to attend parliamentary committee session

Estonia’s Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, has refused to attend a joint session of the state budget and the anti-corruption select committees of the Estonian parliament, the Riigikogu, on 29 August 2023, ERR reports. The committees will hold an extraordinary joint meeting to discuss the operations of Estonian businesses in Russia. Kallas has come under heavy pressure after media revelations that her husband, Arvo Hallik, owns shares in Stark Logistics, which has continued to do business in Russia even after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, newspaper editorials condemned Kallas’s decision not to appear before the committees, arguing that her refusal undermined Estonian parliamentary democracy.