This week, the Baltic presidents called for reforming the UN Security Council, and defence officials discussed strengthening NATO’s eastern flank. As new GDP forecasts were published, Estonia’s government presented its draft budget for 2025, while the Latvian government unveiled plans for tax changes. Also, possible pension reforms were discussed in both Latvia and Lithuania. ***…
This week, Baltic candidates for EU commissioners were named, and the IMF backed down under pressure on its planned Russia mission. The Estonian government agreed on next year’s draft budget, pressed the Orthodox church to cut ties with Moscow, and voted to condemn Israel. Latvia’s president toured the US, the transport minister survived yet again,…
A total of 544,800 households in Estonia, or 92.9% of all households, have used the internet in 2024, according to data from Statistics Estonia, ERR reports. The most common services used on the internet are online banking (90.4%) and email (89.7%). Another 88% of people use the internet to look for information about products or…
This week, Baltic leaders visited Ukraine, urging allies to lift all arms restrictions. In Estonia, informal talks have begun on the next president, as the government plans to raise taxes. Latvia intends to borrow more and imposes more restrictions on Russians and Belarusians, while talks continue on the national air carrier. Lithuania’s Finance Ministry raises…
This is the first ever edition of Baltic Week, our curated free newsletter of top news items from the three Baltic States over the past week (or so). Please note that this new feature will be quite experimental for now, and that this first edition will probably be much longer than subsequent editions. You can…
Lithuanian news agency ELTA has signed a cooperation agreement with Taiwan’s national news agency, Central News Agency (CNA), Focus Taiwan reports. The news agencies agreed to share content free of charge. ELTA is CNA’s first official partner in the Baltic region. CNA’s editor-in-chief, Chris Wang, said that the cooperation between the two news agencies reflected…
Estonian media group Ekspress Grupp will stop publishing its daily newspaper, Eesti Päevaleht, in print as of April 2024, ERR reports. Ekspress Grupp said that the move was due to changes in consumer behaviour. Eesti Pävaleht will continue as a digital publication under the DELFI news portal’s opinion, culture, and weekend sections. Eesti Päevaleht’s print…
One of Lithuania’s most popular news websites, 15min, was subjected to a targeted DDoS attack on 12 July 2023, BNS reports. Several other companies and municipal organisations in Lithuania were subjected to similar cyber attacks. The attacks coincided with a summit of NATO leaders in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.
The proposal of Estonia’s Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA) to begin monitoring media bias will only apply to programmes from third countries, TTJA director general Kristi Talving announced, ERR reports. She apologised for the confusion caused by TTJA’s proposal, saying that the agency should have clarified that the new rules would only apply…