Estonia Political Briefing: Summer Time Politics: Remembrance, Reflections, and … a Time-Off
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ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 19, No. 1 (EE) June 2019 Estonia political briefing: Summer time politics: remembrance, reflections, and … a time-off. E-MAP Foundation MTÜ 1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11. +36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01 Summer time politics: remembrance, reflections, and … a time-off. In Estonia, when it comes to the conceptual understanding of June, the month is distinctly split in two equal halves. The first half is about remembrance of the horrific 1941 June Deportations, and the second one is about trying to have some positively effective time off work. Therefore, this briefing is destined to apply a particular ‘summer coefficient’, reflecting on what is happening in Estonian politics when the weather is taking the chill off the political life. Almost eight decades ago, back in May-June 1941, the Kremlin authorised a mass deportation of people from some of the areas controlled by the Soviet Union in the European East – mostly, from Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Karelia. Masterminded on the highest level of the Soviet leadership, the plan was sanctioned by Lavrenti Beria, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. In the particular case of Estonia, it was within a year since the country was occupied by the Soviet Union, and now it was the time for those whom the Kremlin considered ‘counter-revolutionary elements’ to be deported from their homeland. The records show that the deportation was carried out on 13-14 June 1941, during the night-time, and “the deportees were allowed to take with them household items up to 100 kg per person […], [while] [e]ach family had to be allowed two hours for packing their things and getting on the transportation vehicles, but in reality, [even] these orders concerning baggage and the time limit were not observed – many deportees were rushed away so that they could take only summer clothes and some odd things with them”1. In June 2019, remembering the tragic period of history, it is known that 11,102 people were listed for deportation from Estonia back then – the deportees were pushed onto trucks and taken to collection points to be sent to Russia via railway, in the vast majority of cases2. As an additional abominating component of the process, a quarter of the deportees were children under 163. 1 ‘The June deportation, 1941’ in Estonica, Encyclopedia about Estonia. Available from [http://www.estonica.org/en/The_June_deportation,_1941/#]. 2 Dario Cavegn, ‘Estonia commemorates June 1941 deportation with national day of mourning’ in ERR. 14 June 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/952432/estonia-commemorates-june-1941-deportation-with-national- day-of-mourning]. 3 Cavegn. 1 On the day of remembrance, Urmas Reinsalu, the current Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs, laid a wreath at the memorial to the victims of the Soviet occupation in Vilnius. Vising Lithuania, which had also suffered from deportations in the post-Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact period, the Minister noted that [t]oday marks the 78th anniversary of the June deportation of 1941, and the memory of the victims of these events lives on in our hearts to this day. […] The deportation was a crime against humanity committed against our own people. We will not forget these horrible events and this injustice in the future4. In the meantime, the Kremlin-related sentiments had plenty of contemporary political connotations as well. The widespread European political populism, which many experts in the field of international relations associate with Russia-promoted activities, has found its way to the European Parliament. When it comes to the political far-right, as reported by Deutsche Welle, some of the political movements, which now have their representatives in the EU’s only parliamentary institution, met in June to establish a new faction/group – Identity and Democracy – that includes 73 members of the European Parliament out of the 751-seat body5. The group is predictably led by the representatives from the Italian Lega (the rebranded version of Lega Nord per l’Indipendenza della Padania) with their 28 MEPs and the French Rassemblement national that supplied the establishment with 22 MEPs. Jaak Madison, the only Estonian MEP who was elected to the European Parliament from the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond or EKRE) became one of the inaugural members of Identity and Democracy as well. Back in May 2019, the Madison’s role in the process of arranging the Marine Le Pen’s visitation to Estonia was crucial. Now, the undisputed leader of the Rassemblement national, together her colleagues from Lega, Alternative für Deutschland and some other like-minded political movements, invited Jaak Madison to establish what is likely to be the fourth or fifth largest group at the newest version of the European Parliament. Intriguingly for future development of the Identity and Democracy- associated actions, as Deutsche Welle claims, “[o]ne of the main differences among the far- right groups in Europe appears to be their attitude towards Russia […] [-] Salvini’s [Lega] and 4 Urmas Reinsalu in ‘Gallery: Reinsalu pays respects to June deportation victims in Vilnius’. ERR. 14 June 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/952539/gallery-reinsalu-pays-respects-to-june-deportation-victims-in- vilnius]. 5 ‘Far-right parties form new group in European Parliament’. Available from [https://www.dw.com/en/far-right- parties-form-new-group-in-european-parliament/a-49189262]. 2 Le Pen’s [Rassemblement national] enjoy close ties to Moscow while Scandinavian and Baltic parties see Russia as more of a threat”6. In such a context, an opinion expressed by Urmas Paet, another MEP from Estonia and the country’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs, is worthwhile noting. In accordance to his statement, the high-profile Estonian politician argued on importance “to recall that while right- wing extremists and those opposed to the EU said that they were going to make great progress at the elections, and that a powerful anti-European bloc would emerge in the aftermath, this has proven to be empty bluffing”7. On a conceptually metaphorical note, Paet argued that “[t]he emergence of a united and formidable anti-Europe faction in the European parliament has also failed to materialize” and that “the ‘Kremlin friends club’ will remain small – a logical decision since most Europeans of any hue view the security and well-being of their home nations as paramount”8. At the same time and with respect of the educated guess expressed by Urmas Paet, it will be hard to counterargue that the current European Parliament’s every-day being will be significantly moderated by a nouvelle and politically super-patchy but unquestionably sizeable group of MEPs who do not represent the highly bureaucratised European classic mainstream of the centre-right and the centre-left. These new populist movements are mobile and astonishingly flexible in policy-making calls, while representing a significant share of the EU’s electorate. In addition to the aforementioned Identity and Democracy, the European Parliament is to be featured by the presence of 29 MEP from the UK’s Brexit Party, which is led by Nigel Farage. This particular anti-EU political movement became a locomotive for the establishment of yet another group in the European Parliament, Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy9. Thus, it is not only in Estonia where the country’s political landscape is getting re-cultivated as we speak – the grand-level of the EU will experience plenty of attempts to moderate the entity’s major strategies by very active populist movements, which have got their solid presence in the European Parliament by now. The formation of the new European Commission – since it has to be approved by the EU’s parliamentary body – will be a crucial ‘survival’ test for the European Parliament in regards of its interoperability within the entity. 6 ‘Far-right parties form new group in European Parliament’. 7 ‘Opinion: Kremlin friends an isolated group at European Parliament’ in ERR. 12 June 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/951496/opinion-kremlin-friends-an-isolated-group-at-european-parliament]. 8 ‘Opinion: Kremlin friends an isolated group at European Parliament’. 9 ‘Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy’. Available from [http://www.efddgroup.eu/]. 3 Speaking about the European Commission, however, the Republic of Estonia has already formulated its proposal on who will represent the country in what is informally known as the EU’s ‘Cabinet of Ministers’. Kadri Simson, the former Estonian Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure (November 2017 – April 2019), will become a Commissioner in the new European Commission. So far, since the time of Romano Prodi-led Commission (1999-2004) until now, Estonia was represented in the body only by two personalities who were/are also the country’s former Prime Ministers – Siim Kallas and Andrus Ansip. More significantly, both men were serving as the Commission’s Vice-Presidents. In a big interview to Postimees, Kadri Simson spoke about her future job in Brussels: I certainly won’t become [V]ice-[P]resident in [the next] Juncker’s cabinet. Rather I shall have to negotiate about the issues the cabinet hoped to handle in the remaining months. But the allocation of roles in the following commission will fully depend on the next president, how the president will organize the work in the [C]ommission. It depends on the [P]resident whether there will be [V]ice-[P]residents or what their missions would be.10 Elaborating further on her prospective portfolio, the Estonian nominee to join the European Commission noted that this cabinet of course has other portfolios interesting for Estonia.