Estonia Political Briefing: the New Estonian Government Has Been Formed: Reflections, Prospects, Concerns E-MAP Foundation MTÜ

ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 18, No. 1 (EE)

May 2019

Estonia political briefing: The new Estonian Government has been formed: reflections, prospects, concerns 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

The new Estonian Government has been formed: reflections, prospects, concerns

Having been extensively described in a number of our previous briefings, the process of voting for and then forming the newest governmental coalition in Estonia was arguably still within the framework of liberal democracy, but evidently stretching the boundaries of political ethic and generating plenty of justified concerns about the nation’s strategic agenda in years to come. In international media (for example, ‘Hard-Line Nationalists Affirmed as Part of Estonia’s Cabinet’1 in Bloomberg), the stories on Estonia as an e-country, which champions the digital world, started being substituted by a particular narrative that is directly associated with the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE) and its activities. On the local ground, the current Prime Minister’s political movement – the Estonian Centre Party (Centre) – has already felt some severe consequences of their decision to form the post-elections governmental coalition with the EKRE. As reported, the ‘centrists’ are currently enjoying (is it a correct word, considering circumstances?) the support of 15.3% of the electorate, keeping in mind that they received 23.1% of the votes during the March 2019 parliamentary elections2. For Jüri Ratas and his party, such a drop in popularity means a significant gain for the competition – the oppositional Estonian Reform Party is the favourite for 34% of the prospective voters, boosting its elections-recorded figures by more than 5%3. At the same time, this is only the beginning of a fascinating story on what May 2019 has unloaded on the field of Estonian politics. Let us keep our seat belts fastened.

On 24 April 2019, the Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid appointed the Jüri Ratas-led Government into office4. The Prime Minister kept his previous job as well as the Minister of Defence (Jüri Luik, Pro Patria) and the Minister of Education and Research (Mailis Reps, Centre). Jaak Aab (Centre), being absent from the Government since May 2018, was appointed to hold the Regional Affairs portfolio. As for Urmas Reinsalu (Pro Patria), he left the Justice portfolio, of which he had been in charge for four years and in the previous two Governments,

1 Ott Ummelas ‘Hard-Line Nationalists Affirmed as Part of Estonia’s Cabinet’ in Bloomberg. 23 April 2019. Available from [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-23/hard-line-nationalists-approved-as-part- of-estonia-s-new-cabinet]. 2 ‘Party ratings: Support for Centre hits record low’ in ERR. 13 May 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/939035/party-ratings-support-for-centre-hits-record-low]. 3 ‘Party ratings: Support for Centre hits record low’. 4 ‘Estonian president appoints 3-party govt into office’ in Postimees. 25 April 2019. Available from [https://news.postimees.ee/6577846/estonian-president-appoints-3-party-govt-into-office].

1 moving into Foreign Affairs. Finally, Tõnis Lukas (Pro Patria), the country’s former Minister of Education and Research on two occasions (1999-2002 and 2007-2011) got a job to lead the Ministry of Culture this time. Other than the aforementioned politicians, the remaining members of the newest Estonian governmental coalition are Ministers-neophytes. More specifically, on the EKRE side, the party’s representatives will be responsible for the following five portfolios: Finance (Martin Helme), the Interior (Mart Helme), Environment (Rene Kokk), Foreign Trade and Information Technology (Kert Kingo), and Rural Affairs (Mart Järvik)5.

Immediately after the appointment of the Government, Mart Helme, the EKRE’s founding leader, while sounding like a Prime Minister, made a substantial statement in the context of the cabinet’s future steps:

This is a government that will change the outdated practices concerning the budget, very many fossilized stances in Estonian politics, and, believe me, in four years, once this government has been in office, Estonia will have become significantly better and more democratic, the guarantee of this is that we will initiate the public initiative, the procedure of referendum6.

The above message is of immense importance for the Republic of Estonia, because, should the new Government survive its battle against time, the opposition, and its internal conflicts that are obvious, there is a likelihood that the decision-making process in the country will start leaning towards engaging direct democracy-bound procedures on a regular basis. For Estonia, a parliamentary democracy, it will, with necessity, mean that the power of the Riigikogu will be significantly undermined. The regular usage of referenda is a practice that can be easily abused by those in power as it is conceptually bypassing the process of intra-parliamentary deliberation on an important issue – after all, on the elections day, the voters empower the MPs to make decisions on their behalf on the vast majority of policies, and if the MPs make a wrong call, then the voters change their mind during the next elections. In general, this has been a normal practice in Estonia, and the power of the Riigikogu has been enormously respected by the electorate. If this is time for a change, the change will have a tectonic impact on the parliamentary democracy-associated postulates in the Republic. The special attention to what Mart Helme says is not only justified by the peculiar political ‘aura’ of his party, but it has also a solid institutional backing – on 2 May, it was announced that whenever the Prime Minister is away from the country, his duties will be fulfilled by the

5 Valitsus. Available from [https://www.valitsus.ee/en]. 6 Mart Helme in ‘Estonian president appoints 3-party govt into office’.

Minister of the Interior7. It did not take long when the second-in-charge made international headlines – it happened during the first governmental press-conference that was held by Jüri Ratas together with his Ministers of the Interior and Foreign Affairs. The reference was made in regards of a particular situation when, during the new Government’s oath taking procedure at the Riigikogu, the Estonian President left her chair when Marti Kuusik, the then EKRE’s appointee for the post of the Minister of Foreign Trade and Information Technology, was giving his oath8. As CNN noted, Kuusik had to salute an empty chair, but the reason for the President’s ‘walkout’ was that the then appointed-for-a-moment Minister, as reported by Eesti Ekspress some time before the oath moment, would be facing “the allegations of domestic abuse against him” and that the police “swiftly launched a criminal investigation into Kuusik”9. At the time of the first governmental press-conference, Mart Helme had learn how to live with the fact that Kuusik had to resign, but the Estonian Minister of the Interior’s comments on the President had evidently broadened horizons of the possible, regarding the country’s contemporary political discourse:

An emotionally fired-up woman can allow herself that. […] But Kersti Kaljulaid is n[o]t just a woman, but rather the President of the Republic. She reads one article, is so emotionally upset as a woman that she immediately passes judgment on the fly.10

Characteristically for the moment, the Prime Minister was sitting at the same table with Minister Helme, but did not make a strong effort to denounce the morally questionable statement of his colleague. As for the other members of the current Estonian Government, they decided to speak up a bit louder. Jaak Aab (Centre) was, perhaps, the first among the Ministers to publically react on the aforementioned press-conference:

What happened in the Riigikogu may have been a little demonstrative. But something sounds a bit off with Mart making this level of criticism. He did n[o]t just critici[s]e the president, but

7 ‘Ratas appoints Mart Helme first substitute in absence of prime minister’ in ERR. 2 May 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/935364/ratas-appoints-mart-helme-first-substitute-in-absence-of-prime-minister]. 8 ‘President Kaljulaid ‘emotionally upset as a woman,’ says Helme’ in ERR. 2 May 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/935907/president-kaljulaid-emotionally-upset-as-a-woman-says-helme]. 9 Eliza Mackintosh, ‘Estonian interior minister calls first female president ‘emotionally upset woman’’ in CNN. 3 May 2019. Available from [https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/03/europe/estonia-minister-calls-female-president- emotional-scli-intl/index.html]. 10 Mart Helme in ‘President Kaljulaid ‘emotionally upset as a woman’.

tagged all women with the generalization that they are ‘over-emotional’. I certainly disapprove of that and the targeting of groups in society on the basis of gender or race.11

Then it was Jüri Luik (Pro Patria), the Minister of Defence, who gave his opinion on the issue during his interview to Postimees:

I was not among the architects of this coalition. As concerns EKRE rhetoric, it is mostly up to the party themselves. EKRE leader Mart Helme has now said they do not plan to change their rhetoric. It is difficult for me to say how this will turn out in the long run. It is clear that a state’s international reputation depends directly on how its ministers act and speak. Every Estonian minister is seen as a representative of the country. I have immense respect for the office that I hold, and I approach it cautiously and calmly as opposed to taking risks or testing the limits in terms of my rhetoric, behaviour or something else.12

As for the Luik’s interview, the Minister did not hide away from the fact that he was not in favour of his party’s move to enter this particular governmental coalition; therefore, he was not planning to join the new government. However, as a last minute call and “when it was certain this would be Estonia’s next government”, he decided that “protecting the interests of national defen[c]e and Estonia’s ties to its allies to ensure stable contact is important no matter the government”13. Most probably, these days, Minister Luik is working overtime, trying to explain to his country’s allies what his own party’s unpredictable coalitional partner is really up to. Approximately at the same time when the Estonian Minister of Defence was giving his interview, Jaak Madison, an influential EKRE MP, made an announcement using his social media page that Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen (known as Marine Le Pen) was to visit Estonia soon14. The news made an effect of a bombshell in Estonia – an Estonian parliamentary party was getting prepared to host the leader of the National Rally, a French ultra-populist as well as right-wing nationalist political movement that exhibits a confusing agenda in terms of policy- making, but strongly opposes French membership in the EU, NATO and other existing integrative frameworks where France was one of the main initiators and is one of the main beneficiaries. Even though Mart Helme was quick enough to declare that “[e]ssentially, Le Pen

11 Jaak Aab in ‘Prime minister, Centre, squirming a bit over Helme remarks, says minister’. ERR. 3 May 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/935988/prime-minister-centre-squirming-a-bit-over-helme-remarks-says- minister]. 12 Jüri Luik in Vilja Kiisler, ‘Luik: state’s reputation depends on every minister’. Postimees. 7 May 2019. Available from [https://news.postimees.ee/6677818/luik-state-s-reputation-depends-on-every-minister]. 13 Luik. 14 ‘Some Le Pen views too leftist, says EKRE leader’ in ERR. 9 May 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/938129/some-le-pen-views-too-leftist-says-ekre-leader].

4 invited herself to visit us”15, it was clear that the EKRE’s role in the process of arranging the French politician’s trip to Tallinn was not a secondary one.

While the country’s main media outlets and think tanks started pondering on how to make some analytical sense of what was going on, Taavi Rõivas, the former Estonian Prime Minister on two consecutive occasions (March 2014 – November 2016), became one of the first representatives of the nation’s political elite to express his opinion on the above described development, specifying that the people of Estonia do not approve Le Pen’s pro-Kremlin mindset:

The event, planned as an election campaign culmination, may instead damage EKRE, as [Le Pen] is a living example of how Europe’s right-wing populism is also a strongly pro-Kremlin movement. […] The people of Estonia in no way approve of Le Pen’s stances that, among other things, praise the annexation of Crimea and the inclusion of Russia in NATO. […] I am fairly certain that many EKRE voters also do not approve of Le Pen's views.16

At midnight, on 13 Monday, Marine Le Pen arrived to Estonia, immediately giving a heads-up for everyone who surrounded the visitors at Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport: “I came to meet with the head of the […] EKRE with whom we want to form a new parliamentary group [in the European Parliament]”17. A clear message it was, but the next day brought another decent load of news for those who were still after experiencing the ‘diversity’ of Estonian politics from the imagery first row. Having had to admit that “a part of the French politician’s visit was financed by EKRE”, Mart Helme hosted Marine Le Pen at the Riigikogu, and, after a meeting that “lasted a little over an hour”, the EKRE faction together with the visitor’s delegation proceeded “into the White Hall of the Riigikogu for a photography session”18.

The ‘juiciest’ part of the whole event, however, was symbolically scheduled to take place at the House of the Blackheads in the Old Town. As reported, this time, Jaak Madison (EKRE) was in charge to host a meeting between him, Olli Kotro (the Finns Party), Anders Vistisen (the Danish People’s Party), Manuel Vescovi (Lega Nord Toscana), and Marine Le Pen (the French

15 Mart Helme in ‘Some Le Pen views too leftist, says EKRE leader’. 16 Taavi Rõivas in ‘Rõivas: EKRE made big mistake inviting Le Pen to Estonia’. ERR. 13 May 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/939107/roivas-ekre-made-big-mistake-inviting-le-pen-to-estonia]. 17 Marine Le Pen in Sander Punamäe, ‘Le Pen promoting EKRE’. Postimees. 15 May 2019. Available from [https://news.postimees.ee/6684148/le-pen-promoting-ekre]. 18 Punamäe.

Rally)19. The meeting’s connotation was explicit – a range of main European right-wing movements are on a unifying mood in the light of the upcoming elections to the European Parliament. As for the press-conference that was followed after the meeting, there was only one striking moment, which could be on interest from the political communication point of view. When Marine Le Pen was asked “why she supports the annexation of Ukraine”, the French politician’s reply was very special:

Madam, with all due respect, I find your question to constitute an insult. […] I will not stand for claims we are under Putin’s control. I would like to know whether you put the same kinds of questions to the Center Party and the [Estonian] PM, considering their cooperation with United Russia.20

From all perspectives, the above Le Pen’s answer represented a direct verbal intrusion into Estonian internal politics, while downgrading the role of Jüri Ratas in the current Estonian Government. Therefore, there is a little surprise that some of the influential members of the Prime Minister’s party started being very sceptical about the future of this governmental coalition. For example, as reported, Minister Mailis Reps (Centre) argued that “[i]f the rhetoric of EKRE politicians does n[o]t change, the current government w[ill] n[o]t last long”21. Speculatively considering the already discussed view on the situation expressed by Minister Luik (Pro Patria), not everybody at this party is happy about the Pro Patria’s situative partnership-in-coalition with the EKRE as well. In any case, arguably, the history of Estonian politics since the point when the country managed to regain its independence is now split in the two unequal periods – what was before the Le Pen’s visit and what will happen after it.

19 Punamäe. 20 Le Pen in Punamäe. 21 ‘Reps: Government won't last long with current EKRE rhetoric’ in ERR. 14 May 2019. Available from [https://news.err.ee/939322/reps-government-won-t-last-long-with-current-ekre-rhetoric].