The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommended that the Estonian government stabilise public debt by limiting budget spending and increasing revenue, ERR reports. IMF experts warned that if current policies continued, public debt would become unsustainable. GDP growth alone will not solve the country’s long-term challenges, they pointed out. Achieving more sustainable growth would require increasing…
Two thirds of Estonian voters disapprove of the government’s performance, according to a new Norstat poll in May 2026, ERR reports. In the survey, 67% of respondents said that the government was performing poorly, while 27% found that the government was doing its job well. The government’s approval rating was unchanged from April 2026. Support…
Estonia’s Finance Minister, Jürgen Ligi, vowed to defend budget discipline and push back against populist spending proposals ahead of the parliamentary elections in March 2027, ERR reported. Ligi said that the country’s political culture had deteriorated badly, and acknowledged that populism had crept into his own Estonian Reform Party as well. He insisted on the…
Estonia’s Minister of Finance, Jürgen Ligi, has rejected a proposal to lower the excise duty on diesel fuel temporarily, ERR reports. Ligi argued that broad-based tax cuts would have a very large and lasting negative impact on the state budget, and that targeted measures to support vulnerable households and sectors would be more sensible. In…
Estonia’s Finance Ministry has drafted legislative amendments that would grant the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) explicit authority to access banking data to combat money laundering, ERR reports. Under the law, banks would not be allowed to inform clients about such inquiries. Earlier, following criticism from Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madise, Justice Minister Liisa Pakosta restricted…
Estonia’s real GDP will grow by 2.3% in 2026 and by 2.5% in 2027, according to the Ministry of Finance’s latest economic forecast, ERR reports. In subsequent years, the ministry expects the country’s GDP growth to slow down slightly. Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi noted that security and uncertainty were the prevailing factors at the moment….
The EU should make the implementation of a global minimum corporate income tax voluntary or abolish the tax altogether for small countries like Estonia, Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi insisted, ERR reported. He noted that the EU had made the global minimum tax mandatory for member states through a directive, which he said placed EU businesses…
Estonia hopes to receive around EUR 6bn more from than it pays to the EU’s budget for 2028-2034, Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi said, ERR reports. Under the current budget proposal, Estonia would contribute EUR 4.8bn to the EU’s next multiannual financial framework. Estonia’s national allocation would amount to EUR 6.5bn and funds awarded competitively to…
Breaking up Estonia’s state-owned energy group, Eesti Energia, would not improve energy security, Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi stated, ERR reports. Speaking in an interview with Vikerraadio, Ligi insisted that Eesti Energia provided an essential service for society. He said that building a new gas power plant in Narva was a “good idea,” but stressed the…