Estonia’s state-owned Rail Baltic Estonia has signed a contract for construction work on the first section of the new Rail Baltica main railway line with TREV-2 Grupp and AllSpark, ERR reports. The 4.8-kilometre section runs from Tallinn’s Ülemiste railway station to Rae municipality. Construction work will begin in spring 2024 and is due to be…
The Estonian shipping company, Tallink Grupp, carried a total of 5,705,600 passengers in 2023, which was up 4.5% from 5,462,085 in 2022, ERR reported. The number of passengers increased on the Estonia-Finland and Estonia-Sweden routes, but decreased on the Finland-Sweden routes. The company’s ferries carried 840,881 passenger vehicles in 2023, which was an increase of…
Estonia’s ruling coalition plans to lower the country’s voting age in all elections to 16 years, ERR reports. The coalition has agreed on cutting the minimum voting age in elections to the European Parliament. Under the plan, teenagers would be able to vote in European elections in 2029. The coalition parties want to cut the…
The Estonian Defence and Aerospace Industry Association (EKTL) has signed a cooperation agreement with Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries, ERR reports. The agreement, which covers both technology development and transfer, allows Estonian defence industry companies to increase their involvement in the development of Ukraine’s defence capabilities, giving direct access to Ukrainian state institutions. Currently, 10…
Estonia’s annual number of live births dropped to a new record low in 2023, according to data from the Ministry of Interior, ERR reports. The number of people born totalled 10,721 in 2023, which was down 867 from 11,588 a year earlier. Deaths totalled 15,832, which was down 1,413 from 17,245 in 2022. Deaths thus…
Estonian President Alar Karis said that the main purpose of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s official visit to Estonia was to thank the people of Estonia for their unwavering support during the ongoing war, ERR reported. He called on democratic countries to do more for Ukraine to win and for Russia to lose. The outcome of…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has concluded a two-day official visit to the three Baltic States. At a press conference with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, Zelensky said that his visit underscored the “shared trust” between nations in Russia’s neighbourhood, BNS reported. Speaking to a large crowd outside the Presidential Palace in Vilnius, Zelensky said that Russia…
The parliamentary group of Estonia’s opposition Estonian Centre Party (Keskerakond) will find it hard to recover from the exodus of MPs from the party, ERR’s Uku Toom estimates. The parliamentary group has dwindled from 26 MPs a year ago to just 7 today. The faction is therefore unlikely to have representatives in all parliamentary committees…
The number of new cars sold in Estonia totalled 22,820 in 2023, which was 11.7% more than in 2022, according to data from the Union of Estonian Car Sales and Service Enterprises (AMTEL), ERR reports. Sales were still short of the figure in 2019, when the number of new cars sold totalled 26,589. Hybrid vehicles…
