An extraordinary congress of the opposition Estonian Centre Party (Keskerakond) has elected Tallinn mayor Mihhail Kõlvart as the party’s new chairman, ERR reports. Kõlvart won with 543 votes against MP Tanel Kiik who received 489 votes. Kõlvart replaced Jüri Ratas, who supported Kiik for his successor. Ratas had chaired the Centre Party since 2016. Kõlvart’s…
Estonia’s Foreign Minister, Margus Tsahkna, criticised US technology entrepreneur Elon Musk for denying Ukraine access to his astronautics company SpaceX’s satellite network, Starlink, ERR reports. Tsahkna noted that Musk had an opportunity to shorten the war in Ukraine and save lives, but chose not to do so. Musk said that he had refused Ukraine’s request…
Estonia’s Office of the Prosecutor General has charged Aivo Peterson, leader of the pro-Russian political party, Together (Koos), with treason, ERR reports. Also, Estonian citizen Dmitri Rootsi was charged with treason and Russian citizen Andrey Andronov for non-violent activities against Estonia. Rootsi and Andronov are both members of the pro-Russian organisation, Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor)….
Over two thirds of Estonians think that Prime Minister Kaja Kallas should resign amid a scandal over business ties with Russia, according to a new Norstat poll for the Institute of Societal Research (YI), ERR reports. The survey showed that 67% of respondents thought that Kallas should resign, while 27% said that she should not….
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…
