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Estonia Political Briefing: a Plan for 100 Days in Office and the Government's Daily Routine

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Estonia Political Briefing: a Plan for 100 Days in Office and the Government's Daily Routine ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 37, No. 1 (EE) February 2021 Estonia political briefing: A plan for 100 days in office and the Government’s daily routine 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 A plan for 100 days in office and the Government’s daily routine In a country of stable democratic governance, how much time can a newly appointed cabinet of ministers be morally allowed to have for celebrating the appointment? The answer is: ‘almost none’, if not ‘nothing at all’. Frankly speaking, it was the case of the newest Government of Estonia. To their credit, it seemed they got into the process straight away, having issued and approved a comprehensive plan for the Government’s 100 days in office. Objectively, the normal human nature is to always remain critical towards politicians but still give a benefit of doubt. Thus, let us summarise the main points of the aforementioned plan, remembering that the checking point is not too far away – Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and her first cabinet will complete their 100 days in office by 5 May 2021. Analytically, the plan can be sub-divided into the following three segments: 1) what needs to be done to minimise the impact of the pandemic that does not seem to go away; 2) a range of elements within the country’s cross-social spheres and political economy to be reinforced; and 3) some foreign affairs aspects to be emphasised. The best way to start is to start with the beginning… Firstly, since the COVID-19 crisis has already shown the UN-based international system’s nearly absolute incapability to come up with a more or less effective global response, the answers to the pandemic-generated questions are getting found ‘locally’. For Estonia, apart from the work “towards enabling everyone to get a vaccination against coronavirus for free and near their home”, there is also an issue on how to “set forth measures to support the exit from the COVID-19 crisis in education”1. Framework wise, especially considering the latest corruption crisis that toppled the second Ratas cabinet, the Government is planning to “update support measures aimed at facilitating a faster recovery of the economy in the fields which have sustained particularly big damage”, meaning that both the Rural Development Foundation and Kredex will get a set of more focused direction (more specifically, in regards of “a program prepared for enlivening the tourism sector”2. Secondly, on the operational side of political economy, the Government is visualising what they described as “a human-centred healthcare reform by which insurance coverage will 1 ‘Government approves plan for 100 days in office’ in ERR, 11 February 2021. Available from [https://news.err.ee/1608105859/government-approves-plan-for-100-days-in-office]. 2 ‘Government approves plan for 100 days in office’. 1 be expanded and doctor wait times reduced”3. A noble task, of course, but the pandemic figures are on the rise once again, and Prime Minister Kallas is going to be ‘juggling’ with a range of restrictions soon. To continue on the plan, the Estonian language theme is interlinked with a forecasted idea to hire “[a]dditional teaching staff […] to provide teaching in Estonian in kindergartens” and “support people of other language backgrounds studying in Estonian- medium schools”4. The macro-level of development and its future are planned to be associated with “a strategy on hydrogen fuels”, so “a pilot project in hydrogen will be prepared to test in Estonia the entire hydrogen supply chain from production to the use of hydrogen”. This idea is logically interlinked with the process of speeding up “the electrification of the railway in the directions Tallinn-Tartu-Koidula/Valga and Tallinn-Narva” (covering 2/3 of the country) and “an action plan for achieving climate neutrality by 2050” being set “as a national goal”5. Finally, for this segment, the Government is to “support the rapid construction of the 5G network and the implementation of new technologies”, while endorsing all “security requirements for communications networks, after which the country can move ahead with 5G frequency tenders”6. In November 2020, it was announced that Telia, a local telecom business, managed to launch a commercial 5G network in Estonia, connecting Tallinn, Tartu, and Pärnu, while planning to expand to another lot of localities7. At the same time, when it will come to the country-wide approach on 5G to be established and declared, Estonia is likely to be insisting on establishing a common approach across the entire EU, so every Member State will be ‘residing’ on the same ‘page’ in regards of the issue. Thirdly, on foreign affairs, this is even a greater time for noticing the change. The United States is clearly back on track8, and, for Estonia, it is a moment “for intensifying relations with [the country’s] most important allies” (the USA, the UK, Germany, France, Poland, the Nordics, and the rest of the Baltics were mentioned in the context). In addition, the Government is to “analyse the achievements of the elected membership of Estonia in the UN Security 3 ‘Government approves plan for 100 days in office’. 4 ‘Government approves plan for 100 days in office’. 5 ‘Government approves plan for 100 days in office’. 6 ‘Government approves plan for 100 days in office’. 7 ‘First public 5G network launched in Estonia’ in Invest in Estonia, November 2020. Available from [https://investinestonia.com/first-public-5g-network-launched-in-estonia/]. 8 Aamer Madhani, ‘Biden declares ‘America is back’ in welcome words to allies’ in AP, 20 February 2021. Available from [https://apnews.com/article/biden-foreign-policy-g7-summit-munich- cc10859afd0f542fd268c0a7ddcd9bb6]. 2 Council, among other things, for the Estonian presidency in 2021”9. For Kaja Kallas, to win the parliamentary elections back in March 2019 but to only get into business of running the country from January 2021, this political year will be decisive in terms of proving the point that she can deliver as a Prime Minister. That is why her most recent large interview to Postimees10 is worth studying as well. In a way, it represents a more enhanced variation of the aforementioned plan for the Government’s 100 days in office, but not only. Evidently, in the interview, all sorts of previous declarations, ideas, speculations, and decisions were put through the prism of the Prime Minister’s personal vision and political standpoints. As a conceptual message, the interview has the following two sides. Firstly, Prime Minister Kallas would prefer to interconnect the ‘Russian theme’ (that has both external and internal dimensions for Estonia) with the common position of the EU and the international geo- strategic environment. For example, she noted that “Russia is playing a very serious game, while international law needs to be upheld”, specifying that “Navalny’s case must merit a reaction” and that, if Russia would like to get the sanctions lifted, it should “leave Ukraine and comply with the Minsk agreements”11. At the same moment, while answering to a range of questions on vaccination and confirming her position that “Russia might use Sputnik V to further political goals”, the Prime Minister underlined that “[t]here is no reason for Estonia to avoid the [Sputnik V] vaccine if the European Medicines Agency greenlights it”12. Arguably, it was done to mitigate the negative impact of those Russian propaganda-driven narratives that managed to ‘enter’ Estonian society and led to questioning the effectiveness of Western vaccines by a sizeable societal group in Estonia. Kallas added that “the Russian media is spreading misinformation about the AstraZeneca vaccine”, but “the fact that the Russian consul decided to be inoculated using the AstraZeneca […] instead of Russia’s own Sputnik V is encouraging”13. Secondly, Kaja Kallas does not want to run a scandalous Government. A part of her interview represented a hint to her party’s coalitional partners, the Centre Party, to sort out the ‘echo’ of the latest corruption scandals as soon as possible. When the Prime Minister was asked on whether or not she will be “forced to explain and apologise” for the ‘centrists’ inappropriate 9 ‘Government approves plan for 100 days in office’. 10 Elo Mõttus-Leppik and Marti Aavik, ‘Kaja Kallas: I cannot stand just sittinG around’ in Postimees, 15 February 2021. Available from [https://news.postimees.ee/7180496/kaja-kallas-i-cannot-stand-just-sittinG-around]. 11 Kaja Kallas as cited in Mõttus-Leppik and Aavik. 12 Kallas. 13 Kallas. 3 behaviour, she reminded the interviewers that the previous Prime Minister’s apologising activity was predominantly associated with the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE), which is now in opposition. Specifying the context, Kallas noted that “EKRE went through 27 scandals during their time in the government […] [, being] damaging for Estonia and something [former Prime Minister] Jüri Ratas had to sort out”14. The latest corruption-linked issue that allegedly involves the Centre Party, as it was argued by Kaja Kallas, “is being handled by law enforcement and has nothing to do with how the country is run”15. As shown in the latest poll, the messages above found some backing in the Estonian electorate. If in December 2020, the then ruling party – the ‘centrists’ – were receiving about 25 per cent of popular support, their figure for January were 5 per cent lower, while only 17 per cent of the prospective voters would cast their ballots for the Centre Party in February 202116.
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