Estonia’s Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, said that she “respectfully disagreed” with President Alar Karis who said that the prime minister should have resigned over a scandal involving business ties that Kallas’s husband had with Russia, ERR reports. This is the first time in 30 years that an Estonian president has urged the prime minister to…
The number of job vacancies in Estonia totalled 11,079 in the second quarter of 2023, which was 17% fewer than in the same period of 2022, according to Statistics Estonia, ERR reports. Altogether 53,849 people were hired and 51,500 people left their jobs in the second quarter of 2023. Labour turnover decreased by 9% over…
Estonia’s Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, should have resigned over a scandal involving her husband’s business ties with Russia, President Alar Karis stated, ERR reports. Speaking after a meeting with the leaders of parliamentary parties, Karis said that he would personally have preferred to see Kallas resign for the sake of the government’s effectiveness and Estonia’s…
Many Estonian companies continue doing business with Russia, ERR reports. Altogether 500-600 Estonian businesses still trade goods with Russia. The total value of goods exported from Estonia to Russia has not changed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when it amounted to EUR 50-70mn per month. This is partly due to the rise…
A public petition against the Estonian government’s planned car tax collected 65,565 signatures by its close on 31 August 2023, ERR reports. The Estonian Car Owners Association (EAOL) initiated the petition in the middle of July 2023. The number of signatures is the highest ever for public petitions on the Citizen Initiative Portal (Rahvaalgatus). The…
The municipal government of Estonia’s second-largest city, Tartu, is considering introducing new time restrictions on the sale of alcoholic beverages, ERR reports. The city council will discuss possible restrictions in October 2023. In spring 2023, the municipality agreed with most nightclubs in the city to close their doors half an hour earlier in summer. However,…
The Estonian Reform Party does not want its leader, Kaja Kallas, to resign as prime minister, despite a scandal over the involvement of Kallas’s husband in business with Russia, ERR reports. Kallas has repeatedly insisted that she would not resign, and said that her party was not looking for a new prime minister, either. Following…
Estonia’s Prime Minister, Estonian Reform Party leader Kaja Kallas, remains the most popular candidate for prime minister, according to a Norstat poll for the Institute of Societal Research (YI) in late August 2023, ERR reports. The survey showed that 23.7% of voters would like Kallas to remain as prime minister, while 20.2% prefer Jüri Ratas,…
Estonia’s GDP totalled EUR 9.42bn at current prices in the the second quarter of 2023, which was up 5.1% from the same period of 2022, according to data from Statistics Estonia, ERR reports. Real GDP fell by 2.9% over a year, however. Compared to the first quarter of 2023, seasonally adjusted real GDP decreased by…