By the end of the 1990s, we had a wealth of good examples of journals on parliamentary policy, legislative drafting and other topics from around the world, but the idea was still novel in Estonia.
Siim Kallas | Presentation in the Riigikogu at the 1st Reading of the Draft State Budget Act 2000 |
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Kalle Jürgenson | State Budget 2000, What and Why? |
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Olev Raju | Commentaries on the State Budget 2000 |
Madis Võõras | Estonia on the Way to Full Membership of the European Space Agency |
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Ene Ergma | Estonia Has Become a Space State |
Urve Läänemets | A Good Teacher Should Be Ready to Learn Also from the Pupils |
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Külli Eichenbaum | Using the Local Peculiarities of Old Võromaa |
By the end of the 1990s, we had a wealth of good examples of journals on parliamentary policy, legislative drafting and other topics from around the world, but the idea was still novel in Estonia.
The authors from whom the contributions were commissioned had to have something valuable to say to the readers from the point of view of the criteria set by the journal, and they had to present their ideas in a well-argued way.
My objective was to take the journal to a new level, improving its readability while maintaining the quality standards of a research journal.
Over these 20 years, a number of interesting, necessary and educational texts have been published. Many of these will grow in value over time.
It is important to know the target group of the journal: university students, followers of politics, politicians, civil servants, or casual readers.
The development of the Estonian language, culture and identity has been strongly connected with education. Issues of good education are also relevant today. The world is evolving rapidly, and we have to be able to keep up with the skills we need for that, and our education system must be able to provide them to learners. This issue of Riigikogu Toimetised offers a range of views on the state of our (higher) education system, on the quality we should demand from it, what it costs and what we should expect for our money.
Putin has always congratulated the Republic of Estonia on its anniversary, and he probably did so this time, too, but in general he managed to spoil the anniversary of our country, of course. As will be remembered, Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine from various directions early in the morning of 24 February.
The issue of Riigikogu Toimetised you are holding in your hands reflects the current state of our ambitions and the situation relating to our idea of the green transition.
As I am writing these lines, Estonia is enjoying warm summer weather, the streets are crowded with people, the shopping centres are full of shoppers and the restaurant terraces are packed with customers. Everything appears to be almost like it was before. The past year was something in which we did not want to and did not know how to live. However, it seems to be over now. It is time to count the losses and to move on.
It is very welcome that the present government included preparing the strategy “Estonia 2035” into its action programme, so that Estonia will finally have a longer-term plan. This plan will need to reach far longer than one election cycle, and ideally it should form an umbrella strategy for national strategies with a shorter time perspective and narrower topics.
The Editor-in-Chief’s column focuses on the lessons of the crisis, and the opportunities arising from the crisis.
There is no reason for Estonia to hang its head in shame: we have excellent researchers whose work is at the highest global level. Estonian researchers are able to contribute to the international world of science, as well as research issues pertaining to life in Estonia. What can set certain limits is our impatience to get everything immediately, without stopping to ask what researchers have to do to earn their living.
Certainly, the Estonian state was not built on an empty space. Neither in 1918 when the state emerged from local governments, nor in 1991 when the foundation and solid plans of the state were still there. True, we largely used whatever material we could get back then, and some things have changed in the process, and of course life has moved on. However, people’s expectations are still generally the same. People want to live their lives in peace, to rear children and build their houses. For that, the state must provide protection, and help from time to time as the situation allows; it would be nice to have warm rooms, and a sufficiently large living room is needed where the inhabitants could meet each other.
The current Riigikogu, that will soon terminate its activities, has considered the issue of population a very important topic nationally, and has formed a special committee, the Study Committee to Solve the Demographic Crisis, to deal with it. This Committee has drawn public attention to the problem, and has cooperated with the universities and researchers to hear recommendations on how to resolve the situation. This issue of Riigikogu Toimetised, which focuses on the demographic problems of Estonia, publishes some studies that are the result of the work of the Committee.
We could always do more and better, but Estonia has done an impressive job in economic development. From the Soviet era, I remember the queues at stores simply to get a shopping basket, which would only then allow you entry among the product shelves. The shelves had hardly anything on them. The most difficult times were obviously immediately before and after the restoration of the Republic of Estonia. Now we are entering a stage in our development where Estonia is no longer a country offering cheap labour. We should also not be a country offering cheap products; instead, we should move on to the next stage and offer products with a higher added value. This means that instead of a country that assembles components, we are making efforts to become a country that produces the end products, and this also involves branding. In other words, on the global market, we must enter into competition with the countries who previously used us as sub-contractors. This is where innovation comes in, helping us to be better not in strength or cheapness, but in smartness. This issue of Riigikogu Toimetised views the tasks in the Estonian economic development in the context of global economy.
Security is the focus topic of the new issue of Riigikogu Toimetised. As the members of the Riigikogu who participated in the Riigikogu Toimetised conversation circle found, security cannot be divided into external and internal security any more, and there are new aspects in it due to global developments. This is why we can say without exaggeration that security involves all fields of life. Besides war, it is also necessary to take into account humanitarian and natural disasters, and unexpected technological collapses that do not have to be the direct result of the activities of an enemy state (for example, solar flares that can knock out all electronics).
The overarching theme of this issue is the Presidency of Estonia in the Council of the European Union. Lithuania and Latvia have already had the opportunity to try this role. Their presidencies have been rather successful. So there will probably not be any prejudices towards Estonia as a former Soviet republic. We get the task of leading (and waiting is not a possibility in the current situation) the European Union, as it finds itself in a very difficult situation and faces many challenges.
To simplify Lotman’s idea, the culture exists in all forms of human activities. When our forefathers built their log houses, they used manual construction methods that had developed over a certain period. They did it without thinking that some of these houses would be declared heritage sites one day, or that some might even be moved to the Open Air Museum. It is only since the 19th century National Awakening that we have a professional national culture, an idea that we took from the Germans. So we have a popular culture and a national culture, and one way or another we carry both inside us.
Never before has Estonia been so well-known in the world as now, a hundred years later. The reason is simple: we exist now, we are visible also in the international arena now, and we have been there for quite some time already. The international situation of recent years definitely raises existential questions for us again, but, despite that, the question “to be or not to be?” is beginning to be replaced by the question “how to go on?”
Twenty five years ago the question “Who is an Estonian?” would have been considered just an attempt of philosophical discussion aimed at shocking people. I remember the events of the Singing Revolution at the Song Festival Ground, where the people were singing “I am an Estonian and I will remain an Estonian”, and the meaning of this was unambiguously clear: opposition to the Soviet power and to the migrants, who were flwing in at an uncontrollable pace that threatened the existence of the Estonian nation.
Estonia is starting to run out of people who have the skills to build something essential with their own two hands, like a stove, a well or a shed. Just think about your own life, remember your school days and ask yourself: which part of the school curriculum have you needed in real life, and what have you desperately wished you had learned?
The key to the survival of the state of Estonia is the good relations between the Estonians and Russians living here. It is the task of the younger generation of Russians living in Estonia to shape the identity of local Russians.
In 2018, Estonia will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. We have witnessed the Presidency period of Lithuania, which has earned international praise behind the scenes. Lithuania as the presiding country showed itself to be an efficient diplomat and administrator who is able to join national and Pan-European interests. The activities of President Dalia Grybauskaitė greatly contributed to it.
It is November 2013. Autumn has been unexceptionally long and warm. The Minister of Culture of the Republic of Estonia has resigned. He said he did not have the possibility to have a say in the communication field, that in this field all truth transforms into lies. Culture newspaper „Sirp” became a part of a happening during which real people suffered.
The history dispute that broke out in Estonia in the beginning of this year, after the publication of Volume 2 of The History of Estonia, is a clear example that characterises the situation in Estonia. In a sense, Estonia is again at the crossroads: is it better to hold on fast to the values of the nation state, or to be carried along with the current of globalisation and merge into something larger – the Baltic States, the Nordic Countries, the European Union. History and the myths created on its basis have two times been very important for Estonia in achieving independence. Now, when the modern view on history has placed the events of the Middle Ages in Estonia into a wider European context, there suddenly seemed to be less heroism. The fear that an important truth is disputed brought along a wave of criticism.
This year we celebrated the twentieth anniversary of many events that were important to Estonia after regaining independence: the entry into force of our Constitution, start of the work of the Riigikogu, elections of the President, and also the adoption of the Estonian kroon.
The sinister circumstances connected with the financing of political parties that have come to light this spring force the Estonian society to ask questions belonging to the sphere of ethics.
Money is looking for a refuge. Government bonds that until now were reliable are not trusted any longer; the bonds of some European states have been declared trash by rating agencies.
20 August of this year is the twentieth anniversary of the day Estonia again became an independent state.
On 1 January 2011, Estonia will adopt the euro. It is a sign of the development of our economy during the last two decades. Although the efforts made for fulfilment of the formal criteria of the euro deserve recognition, with the benefit of hindsight it can be said that the preparation begun much earlier. Likewise, no politician or government can say that the euro is their merit. It is the Estonian people who deserve credit for that. We are one of the poorest in the “euro club” at present but we can rely on Estonians’ tenacity and diligence – they will do everything to raise their rating. The euro is a landmark which has been achieved with a great effort and from which something new will be born.
There are about 130 000 people in Estonia who are looking for a job. A large number of people in their prime have no steady income and, what is even worse form their own standpoint, they have no possibility to be useful.
The world is changing. The financial and economic crisis has forced people to abandon their habitual spend-use-and-dispose behaviour reminiscent of a hamster in a wheel.
The tenth issue of Riigikogu Toimetised (RiTo) was supposed to be published in December 2004.
The idea behind the publication was conceived and made a reality as a sideline, just like many institutions of the Estonian state were built, both in our era and before our time.
For a long time we kept repeating to ourselves that we were not Latvia. Our economy would manage the crisis better, we had reserves, our politicians were better statesmen, etc. Until the cabinet crisis broke, that is. Until the cabinet crisis was created, to be precise. Disgruntled voices now say that we are like Latvia.
Signs of the impending global economic crisis could be seen for many years, but did not receive sufficient attention. It was more convenient and pleasant to hope that, if a phase of economic decline did set in, it would not prove a very serious one. Now things look different.
Estonia may lack money, ideas and capacity for engaging in cooperation.
Talking about history has become popular and often two mutually exclusive arguments are heard.
For Estonia, spring 2007 has been extraordinary. For the first time in the last fifteen years, we felt that we could be facing serious domestic and foreign policy problems.
Estonian parties have partisan interests in abundance, but a shortage of worldview, firm convictions and principles.
Spring 2006 should be a hot one in Estonian politics. The birth of a new party is right around the corner. Sooner or later the result will be a shifting of the entire party-political terrain. In the autumn a new head of state will be elected in Estonia; in nine months, the people will elect another parliament.
For a time this autumn, a discussion broke out in the Estonian media over the dearth of ethical and moral values in society. It struck me that I, too, have become more inured with each passing year where my social instincts are concerned.
In the last fifteen years, Estonian society has achieved an extraordinary amount economically and politically.
The editor's column casts a look back at the ten issues of RiTo so far. RiTo has successfully cleared its early hurdles and has proved its merits. It has become, as the title page overleaf states, a magazine that reflects on parliament's constitutional and social duties, RiTo's readers are a loyal contingent and the periodical's place on the shelf of academic journals is nicely assured… a solid green row of spines.
Population experts paint a fairly bleak picture when it comes to Estonia. The population pyramid, which should have a wide base since the young make up the largest part of the population, is in fact eroded. The burden of bearing the economy and general weal falls onto the shoulders of people who are in their middle years but approaching pension age. Some relief is provided by 15-19-year-olds, whose fairly sizeable ranks are about to enter the workforce.
The main theme of this edition of RiTo is Estonia and the European Union.
The leading article treats the topic, raised by the media, of employment benefits for Riigikogu members.
Many events during the restoration of independence era are worthy of remembrance and commemoration, but three have proved to be chief among them. They are closely tied with one another and it would be wrong to view them separately.
During recent months, the Riigikogu has enjoyed the relatively stable support of about one-third of the population. What should the Riigikogu actually do in order to deserve at least a half of the Estonian residents' approval ofto its activities?
The work of the Parliament is reflected in the media, legislation, proceeding from reforms, and government statistics. The opening columns, reflecting on the Estonian press, reform statistics and articles in Riigikogu Toimetised (RiTo) No. 3, lead from the image of the Estonian Parliament and the voters' expectations towards the future plans of RiTo, where words count.
The Editor-in-Chief discusses some conceptual issues of the Riigikogu Toimetised (RiTo, for short) and some major topics covered in the RiTo 2. To start with, he characterizes Estonian Parliamentary Democracy as a nice human-faced creature with two dissimilar legs.
Dear Reader of the Riigikogu Toimetised.
Democracy as a form of a state’s political regime is a constantly regenerating process that is based on a continuing dialogue between the people and Parliament.
The back column of the Riigikogu Toimetised editor-in-chief Aare Kasemets (Riigikogu Chancellery) and managing editor Ülo Siivelt (Estonian Law Centre, Tartu) sums up the issues related to the concept of the publication, its first issue and future plans. When searching for the concept of the Riigikogu Toimetised, the Estonian information market, parliamentary publications in other countries, etc., were analysed. Eventually, a framework arising from the constitutional tasks of the Riigikogu was designed, which has no international counterparts. As the Estonian society and thus the possible readership of the Estonian-language part of the Riigikogu Toimetised is relatively small, it was not practical to create a publication that would focus narrowly only on law or politics.
The issue of energy has become a global discussion topic over the past year due to the electricity price increase and will probably remain so for some time to come. How should we hold our energy debate so that we could end up with a right and good decision? Jevgeni Ossinovski (Social Democratic Party), Andres Metsoja (Isamaa), Annely Akkermann (Reform Party), Lauri Laats (Centre Party) and Rain Epler (Estonian Conservative People’s Party) discussed this topic in the discussion panel of Riigikogu Toimetised on 19 April.
Toomas Jürgenstein (Social Democratic Party), Priit Sibul (Isamaa), Margit Sutrop (Reform Party), Marko Šorin (Centre Party) and Jaak Valge (Estonian Conservative People’s Party) discussed education, its funding and what could be expected for it in the discussion panel of Riigikogu Toimetised on 9 November.
The war in Ukraine and Estonia’s security are hot topics right now, which is why representatives of political groups in the Riigikogu explored the same in the discussion panel of Riigikogu Toimetised on May 4. The panel was Enn Eesmaa (Centre Party), Jaak Juske (Social Democratic Party), Leo Kunnas (Estonian Conservative People’s Party), and Mihhail Lotman (Isamaa).
The panel discussion of the representatives of the political groups of the Riigikogu on 20 October 2021 focused on the green transition, Estonia’s contribution to it and our capability to meet the targets the European Commission set out in its ambitious package of ideas “Fit for 55”. The panellists were Yoko Alender (Reform Party), Heiki Hepner (Isamaa), Erki Savisaar (Centre Party) and Riina Sikkut (Social Democratic Party). The discussion was moderated by Tiina Kaalep, Editor-in-Chief of Riigikogu Toimetised.
In the discussion panel of Riigikogu Toimetised on 14 April 2021, representatives of parliamentary parties Riina Sikkut (Social Democratic Party), Siret Kotka (Centre Party), Urmas Reinsalu (Isamaa) and Mati Raidma (Reform Party)1 discussed via the videoconferencing platform Teams how Estonia had managed in the global coronavirus crisis.
Jaak Valge (Estonian Conservative People’s Party), Riina Sikkut (Social Democratic Party), Helir-Valdor Seeder (Isamaa), and Erki Savisaar (Centre Party) discussed the Estonia 2035 strategy in the panel of the Riigikogu Toimetised on 14 October. The discussion was moderated by Tiina Kaalep.
On 15 April, representatives of the parliamentary parties Anneli Ott (Centre Party), Marko Mihkelson (Reform Party), Anti Poolamets (Estonian Conservative People’s Party), Mihhail Lotman (Isamaa) and Ivari Padar (Social Democratic Party) discussed if the European Union had responded adequately to the current crisis, how to assess it in short and long-term perspectives, and what the lessons from the crisis were
Maris Lauri (Reform Party), Mihhail Lotman (Isamaa), Lauri Läänemets (Social Democratic Party), Aadu Must (Centre Party) and Jaak Valge (Estonian Conservative People’s Party) discussed research funding and the relationships between science and politics in the discussion panel of “The Riigikogu Toimetised” on 16 April.
Jaak Aab (Estonian Centre Party), Arto Aas (Estonian Reform Party), Jaak Madison (Estonian Conservative People’s Party), Andres Metsoja (Isamaa) and Ivari Padar (Social Democratic Party) spoke of the state reform in the discussion panel of Riigikogu Toimetised on 17 April.
Members of the Riigikogu Study Committee to Solve the Demographic Crisis Yoko Alender (Estonian Reform Party), Monika Haukanõmm (Estonian Free Party at the time of the discussion panel), Heljo Pikhof (Social Democratic Party), Raivo Põldaru (Estonian Conservative People’s Party) and Siret Kotka-Repinski (Estonian Centre Party) participated in the discussion panel of Riigikogu Toimetised on 7 November. Helir-Valdor Seeder (Isamaa) sent his positions in writing.
This time, the Riigikogu Toimetised panel brought together representatives of five Riigikogu factions to discuss Estonia’s economic development on 4 April. The panel was made up of Maris Lauri (Reform Party), Liisa Oviir (Social Democratic Party), Raivo Põldaru (Conservative People’s Party), Erki Savisaar (Centre Party), and Sven Sester (Pro Patria and Res Publica Union).
The representatives of the factions of the Riigikogu discussed security topics in the Riigikogu Toimetised conversation circle on 15 November. Raivo Aeg (Pro Patria and Res Publica Union), Hannes Hanso (Social Democratic Party), Uno Kaskpeit (Conservative People’s Party of Estonia), Ants Laaneots (Estonian Reform Party), Ain Lutsepp (Estonian Free Party) and Tiit Terik (Estonian Centre Party) participated in the discussion.
The latest Riigikogu Toimetised panel discussion, where the representatives of the factions of the Riigikogu Andres Herkel (Estonian Free Party), Jürgen Ligi (Estonian Reform Party), Jaak Madison (Estonian Conservative People’s Party), Marianne Mikko (Social Democratic Party), Mart Nutt (Pro Patria and Res Publica Union) and Toomas Vitsut (Estonian Centre Party) discussed parliamentary culture, took place on 19 April.
The latest Riigikogu Toimetised panel discussion took place on 9 November. This time, the representatives of the parliamentary parties discussed culture. The panel discussed cultural history until the present day, with the participation of Mart Helme (Estonian Conservative People’s Party), Toomas Jürgenstein (Social Democratic Party), Priit Sibul (Pro Patria and Res Publica Union), Aadu Must (Estonian Centre Party), Krista Aru (Estonian Free Party), and Laine Randjärv (Estonian Reform Party). The latter sent her thoughts in writing.
In “Riigikogu Toimetised” conversation circle on 21 April, the representatives of the factions of the Riigikogu discussed the vision or the big plan of Estonia. Should Estonia have it and what should it be like? What are our important development goals? Martin Helme (Estonian Conservative People’s Party), Jaanus Marrandi (Socialist Party), Mart Nutt (Pro Patria and Res Publica Union), Erki Savisaar (Centre Party), Artur Talvik (Free Party), and Urve Tiidus (Reform Party) were the participants of that comprehensive and sometimes even heated discussion.
The traditional Riigikogu Toimetised conversation circle on 23 November discussed the identity of the Estonians. Mart Nutt (Pro Patria and Res Publica Union), Jüri Adams (Free Party), Aadu Must (Centre Party), Marianne Mikko (Social Democratic Party) and Martin Helme (Conservative People’s Party) took part in the conversation circle. Laine Randjärv (Reform Party) sent her positions in writing.
The representatives of the six factions of the Riigikogu participated in the Riigikogu Toimetised (RiTo) conversation circle on 9 May and discussed the issues of human asset. According to the definition of the Estonian Cooperation Assembly Report of 2010, human asset consists of the health and work capacity of people, and also personal quality, a person’s education, skills and abilities. Clearly the first thing that has to be dealt with is the demographic situation of Estonia. Too few people are born here, and unfortunately many of them die too early.
Representatives of all the factions in the Riigikogu took part in the November panel of the Riigikogu Toimetised to discuss whether there was a need to reach a consensus in security issues before the upcoming parliamentary elections. Mati Raidma represented the Reform Party, Urmas Reinsalu – the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union, Enn Eesmaa – the Centre Party, and Marianne Mikko – the Social Democratic Party. They were interviewed by Mart Raudsaar, the Editor-in-Chief of the Riigikogu Toimetised. The theses of the panelists are briefly summarised below.
In Riigikogu Toimetised conversation circle on 30 April, representatives from all factions of the Riigikogu discussed what we should keep in mind in the changed security policy situation: Arto Aas (Reform Party), Liisa-Ly Pakosta (Pro Patria and Res Publica Union), Mailis Reps (Centre Party) and Rannar Vassiljev (Social Democratic Party). They were questioned by Mart Raudsaar, Editor-in-Chief of Riigikogu Toimetised. The theses of the participants in the conversation circle are summarised below.
The Riigikogu Toimetised (RiTo) conversation circle on 26 November discussed the Estonian culture. The discussion dwelt at length on the development plan „The Fundamentals of Cultural Policy until 2020”, which had been drafted by the Ministry of Culture in partnership with several specialised organisations.
The Riigikogu Toimetised conversation circle on 28 May discussed the Estonian Human Development Report.
The Riigikogu Toimetised (RiTo) conversation circle on 28 November discussed the Estonian political party system – its formation after the restoration of independence and later development as well as its current problems and the ways to overcome them.
n the Riigikogu Toimetised (RiTo) conversation circle on 23 May four experts, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sulev Kannike, Consultant of Logistics and Transit Association Andrus Kuusmann, Member of the Riigikogu Jevgeni Ossinovski (Social Democratic Party) and political scientist from the University of Tartu, Project Manager of the Academic Centre for Baltic and Russian Studies Karmo Tüür discussed the development of the Russian Federation during the last two decades. RiTo Editor-in-Chief Helle Ruusing acted as the moderator and compiled a summary of the discussion.
In Riigikogu Toimetised conversation circle on 21 November, three experts discussed the European debt crisis, and the future of the European Union and the common European currency. The experts participating in the conversation circle were the Minister of Finance Jürgen Ligi (Estonian Reform Party), Member of the Board of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute Erkki Bahovski and lawyer Andres Tupits. RiTo Editor-in-Chief Helle Ruusing acted as the moderator and compiled a summary of the discussion.
In Riigikogu Toimetised (RiTo) conversation circle on 24 May, three foreign policy experts analysed the present situation in Arab countries, where the demonstrations against the ruling powers that started in Tunisia have spread over almost the whole North Africa and Middle East.
In Riigikogu Toimetised conversation circle on 22 November, four Members of the Riigikogu discussed the development of the Estonian Parliament during the last two decades.
Riigikogu Toimetised invited four experts of economy and social policy to the conversation circle on 24 May, in order to discuss the extensive unemployment in Estonia as a result of the global economic recession.
The Riigikogu Toimetised conservation circle on 20 November discussed the transition to the common currency of the European Union, the euro, which Estonia firmly wants to join in the coming years. The participants in the conversation circle were Estonian Minister of Finance Jürgen Ligi, former Minister of Finance and current member of the board of Tallink Hotels group OÜ TLG Hotell Aivar Sõerd, Eesti Pank monetary policy department head Ülo Kaasik, and Estonian Development Fund adviser Heido Vitsur. The debate was moderated and summarized by RiTo editor-in-chief Helle Ruusing.
Riigikogu Toimetised invited three experts of social policy to the conversation circle of 27 May, in order to discuss Estonia’s social policy and social system: how our social system has developed, what the priorities of Estonia’s social security are, and what challenges the social system faces because of the economic recession.
On 26 November, the Riigikogu Toimetised summoned four economic experts around one table to talk about the financial and economic crisis and, on its background, the current state of the Estonian economy.
The topic for the conservation circle in this issue of Riigikogu Toimetised is Estonian local governments and problems related to their legal basis, financing, small size and future development.
On 26 November, Riigikogu Toimetised assembled a panel of politicians and experts to discuss the topic of political party financing in Estonia.
Riigikogu Toimetised invited politicians and political observers to take part in a discussion about the election of the 11th Riigikogu on 21 May and the campaign that preceded the elections.
The Riigikogu Toimetised roundtable conversation, moderated by Aivar Jarne, head of the Riigikogu press service and including members of the Riigikogu Rain Rosimannus of the Reform Party faction, Eiki Nestor of the Social Democratic Party faction, Agu Uudelepp, chief of information of the People's Union Party, Vello Pettai, University of Tartu political science scholar, and Argo Ideon, journalist of Eesti Ekspress, discussed the fact that for the third consecutive time the Riigikogu was not able to elect the president on its own and the right to elect passed to the electoral body.
The Riigikogu Toimetised gathered politicians and political scientists for a round table discussion on electoral behaviour of the Estonian people and political parties' place in politics, in light of the local government council s elections, held on 16 October.247
Democracy is a form of political culture and communication. In order for it to work and be sustainable, it requires, like any other sophisticated system, fixed rules, a certain cultural environment, and - most importantly - a system for ensuring the observance of all these principles.
Recent trends indicate an increasingly important and wider role for national parliaments both in the EU legislative process and in domestic decision-making. Eurointegration seems to have resulted in the general strengthening of the sense of responsibility and self-awareness in national parliaments. Public opinion tends to view the EU as a huge bureaucracy far away in Brussels whose decisions benefit only those making them. On the other hand, the European Parliament, elected directly by the citizens since 1979, is believed to be the most democratic institution. The Amsterdam Treaty defines the functions of national parliaments and further strengthens the European Parliament's role.
The Deputy Speaker of the Riigikogu, Siiri Oviir, who is also a representative of the opposition parties in the three-member board of the Riigikogu, focuses in her article on the role of the Parliament in law-making and on the issues of parliamentary control, supervision and autonomy.
A short survey by Kait Oole and Aare Kasemets on the discussions of issues of national importance (INIs) in the Estonian Parliament in 1992 – 1999 deals with the discussions of that period by organised by initiators and topics.
Three questions to the members of the Riigikogu*.
*Members of all Riigikogu factions were approached.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Ilves pointed out three strategic directions of Estonian foreign policy.
*The full version of the speech is available on the homepage of the Estonian Foreign Ministry at the following address: http://www.vm.ee/eng/pressreleases/speeches/1999/Riigikogu_25.html
The starting points for defining Estonia’s foreign policy priorities are the following: globalisation as one of the ever deepening processes in the modern world, and three aspectsof the Estonian state – as a nation state, small state, and border state.
Considering Estonia’s present economic situation, the Government took a conservative approach to the drafting of the budget for 2000. One of the aims was also to guarantee transparency of the drafting of the budget, its implementation and monitoring procedures.
Drafting of this year’s budget was based already on the significantly amended law on the foundations of drafting the state budget. Reforming of the state budget has to continue in order to move towards a more transparent and flexible budget.
Commentaries on the State Budget 2000.
Estonia’s energy sector is at a stage where we are facing a number of choices and challenges that require quick decisions, but it is also important to keep the focus on long-term strategies and targets.
Oil shale from Virumaa has dominated the Estonian energy sector for more than 60 years, or the entire period for which Statistics Estonia has data. Oil shale production peaked in 1980 and reached its lowest level in 1999, after which mining increased again, but it has not reached Soviet-era level any more.
When Moscow launched a full-scale war against Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Eu-ropean countries were not ready to quickly give up importing oil and its products, as well as natural gas, from Russia.
It is high time Estonia understood that the climate crisis is a global problem and not a local debate that can be used to serve your own interests.
I am neither a politician nor an entrepreneur, but I am a qualified engineer and a professor. Moreover, I hold one of the eight technology professorships formed in the public interests in Tallinn University of Technology, the Professorship of Oil Shale Technology. And speaking as a scientist, I would like to see Estonia consider and assess new approaches to using oil shale in our energy sector. Why?
The Resolution of the Riigikogu that 100% of the grid electricity and 65% of all en-ergy consumed in Estonia will be generated from renewable sources by 2030 cannot realistically be met.
The European Union has set a course towards achieving climate-neutrality by 2050. In 2022, nuclear energy was the dominant type of power generation in Europe. What have been the developments in nuclear energy in the world and what are we doing in Estonia? What are the fears regarding nuclear energy and what are the major advantages of this type of energy?
Ida-Viru County has a major role to play in achieving Estonia’s green transition goals. As part of the Green Transition in Communities project funded by the Uni-versity of Tartu, Narva College studied the attitude of entrepreneurs in Ida-Viru County towards the green transition. The study was carried out in cooperation with the Ida-Viru Entreperenurship Centre (Ida-Virumaa Ettevõtluskeskus, IVEK).
In May 2022, KPMG and Finantsakadeemia were given the task of dealing with the issue further, including forecasting the financial and economic impacts of this option on the relevant businesses, as well as examining the related legislative-regulatory background.
The sudden hike in the price of electricity in 2021 and 2022 caused a stir in Estonia and made electricity a key issue in discussions on economic policy.
The aim of this essay is to try to find a way to understanding good education. The starting point is the recognition that in a fast-changing world, the organisation of education seems to stand still, and it is explained by arguing that the real qualities of good education remain unchanged through time.
There are 18 institutions of higher education in Estonia. Their task is to offer high-er education based on cutting-edge scientific knowledge, to train specialists and managers with higher education in specialities necessary for the state and society, to be innovation engines, to engage in ethnic sciences, to make a contribution to world science, and to carry out a knowledge transfer into society.
Education is special. Sociologists of education have known this for a long time. This means that students from high socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to benefit from generously and universally funded education.
Countries are not defined only by their population numbers and territory, but also by the level of human development they exhibit and the quality with which this is managed.
Reforms in education are provoked by four main development trends – new technologies, personalisation, internationalisation, and change in societal expectations. Technology-based business models are coming to the forefront, complementing the contemporary education landscape but also competing with it. The broader introduction of non-academic certificates blurs the lines between higher education and other types of post-secondary education.
The article analyses the issue of the reputation of vocational education through the prism of social ecology.
The ideology of Putin’s Russia relies for a large part on the old Tsarist stock that can be summed up in three words – Tsar, Orthodoxy and nationalism/native land. Russia is a special country, and it is home to a special people that is different to Europe, and only Russia has the right regime.
In mutually dependent energy relations, countries are facing difficult choices if one of the parties of the relationship feels impunity and the market is having trouble with regulating dramatic price fluctuations or supply shortages.
The economic power struggle between the USA and China has been going on for years, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the new Russian aggression have made international strategic economic dependencies an even more acute problem.
Estonia has chosen the right path in developing comprehensive national defence, and the rescue network as an essential part of it must be ready for any crisis, including war.
The threat of military attack against Estonia is currently low but we must nevertheless not discard the possibility that Russia might decide to attack the Baltic region. The civilian population still often bears the brunt of military conflicts, falling victim to attacks either directly or indirectly, and suffering the consequences of the damage to the infrastructure.
* The article is based on the master’s thesis defended by the author in the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences in 2021.
The library as the centre of reliable information has a relevant and necessary role in preventing the spread of disinformation and helping reach the evidence-based information.
When I started to study climatology in 1958, nobody could predict that climate would gather such popularity or become such a threatening force to humankind as it is now.
The European Green Deal is based on the underlying idea that our further develop-ment can only take place in a manner that remains within planetary boundaries and contributes to curbing climate change and keeping global warming within safe limits, stops biodiversity loss and ensures the protection of ecosystems.
Annela Anger-Kraavi was interviewed by Riigikogu Toimetised about the current state of climate negotiations.
According to the Global Risks Report published by the World Economic Forum, extreme weather conditions, failure of climate action and human-induced environmental damage are the most likely risks of the next decade.
Simplified views like “the new technologies will solve all problems” or “we will raise the awareness of consumers” are not enough for meeting the ecological and social sustainability challenges faced by our society.
The climate policy of the European Union, high electricity prices and the challenge of proper forest management have raised questions in the Estonian society about why we need green transition and if it can be achieved at all.
In Estonia, the tradition of exploring local mineral resources is more than a hundred years old.
The article provides a survey of the ongoing green transition in the energy sector both in Estonia and in the world more widely.
The green transition through the prism of the construction industry is simply a well built and efficient house, park, city street, or block that is in total harmony with its surroundings.
In December 2019, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen presented to the public the European Green Deal.
Oil shale has been a unique primary resource for Estonia as well as a pillar of energy security; however, the impact of the oil shale industry has made Estonia one of the most CO2 intense countries in relation to the GDP in the whole European Union.
The coronavirus crisis hit the whole world unexpectedly. We had been used to seeing natural disasters, local theatres of war and outbreaks of infectious diseases in developing countries (Zika and Ebola viruses).
For nearly three centuries already, the government of Estonia has been fighting against epidemics.
The global COVID-19 pandemic truly started to affect Estonia in the beginning of March 2020, when the first local cases of the virus were diagnosed. To support the Government of the Republic in managing the crisis, the Prime Minister formed the COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board, whose key task is to regularly analyse the data on the spreading of the virus, and compile data-based reports and forecasts.
On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus epidemic a pandemic. In Estonia, the first case of infection was confirmed on 27 February 2020. The Board of the Family Physicians Association of Estonia heard about it on the same day, in a train, on their way to the conference of family doctors in Narva. On 12 March 2020, the Health Board of Estonia announced that the number of cases had increased to 27 and the virus was spreading locally. In the late evening of that day, emergency situation was declared in Estonia. It was to last until 1 May. On 25 March, the first death case due to COVID-19 in Estonia was reported.
The COVID-19 pandemic meant for us a crisis where one of the key words was confusion. The emergency situation that was declared on 12 March 2020 made many people compare the situation with other crises, among which war always also looms as a potential threat. The rhetorical question was: “If a healthcare crisis makes us buckle, then how would we as a society deal with war?”
Even during the crises, including epidemics, restricting of fundamental rights has to be justified, instead of justifying not restricting, or allowing the rights or freedoms that are granted by the Constitution.
COVID-19 vaccines were taken into use quicker than any earlier vaccine. This was the appropriate response of the health science and industry to the pandemic, and among other things, it also shows the possibilities provided by targeted cooperation in an optimal financial and logistical environment.
The COVID-19 epidemic has set an unprecedented challenge to health care systems as well as societies as a whole around the world. However, the molecular-epidemiological progress has also reached a point where the whole genome sequencing of the virus permits us to conduct analyses that had remained out of our reach during earlier epidemics.
The first COVID-19 case in Estonia was registered on 26 February 2020. One year later, in spring 2021, over 100,000 people have been diagnosed and over 1,000 deaths have been registered in connection with COVID-19.
Although epidemics are bound to recur with a certain regularity, the humanity was not prepared for a wave of this magnitude and global spread. As a consequence of this epidemic, the economy has suffered through infected or self-quarantined emp-loyees not being able to work, anti-virus measures hindering the normal functioning of the economy, and the crisis-induced uncertainty affecting the behaviour and fu-ture hopes of the people, the businesses and the public sector.
The purpose of the study was to give an overview of distance learning in the Estonian general education schools through the experiences of the pupils and teachers, brin-ging out its lessons for the education system.
Teleworking is a real and lasting form of working that is no longer an unattainable dream or a way of coping with the global pandemic. It has become a necessity, it is now a part of daily life. The need for flexible working relations has been discussed for years, but unfortunately, it has remained at the level of various draft legislation or protocols.
In Estonia, nearly fifty documents direct policy shaping and strategic development at the government level in more than 17 fields.
The Government of the Republic initiated preparation of the strategy “Estonia 2035” on 8 March 2018. The General Part of “Estonia 2035” constitutes a strategic development document that pursuant to Article 20(1) of the State Budget Act has to be approved by the Riigikogu.
Historically, fiscal policy and public finances have been surrounded by many sophisticated concepts, myths and inaccurate interpretations. In the case of economic developments, it is fairly clear that four-percent growth is better than two-percent growth, while in the case of budget deficit and national debt burden the good-bad scale is insufficient and the answer generally depends on the particular situation.
The strategy “Estonia 2035” gives the priority over the next 15 years to the compatibility between the labour market and people’s skills.
Over the last decade, life expectancy in Estonia has grown faster than the EU average. At the same time, the increase in healthy life years has ground to a halt. This means that although people live longer, illnesses and health related causes limit their participation on the labour market and increase the health care costs for the state.
At present, co-creative governance seems to be more complicated than ever before. The crisis that is changing the world contains a billion intricate problems, but there is a lack of trust.
In my article, I assess the vision document “Estonia 2035” (2020) from four aspects: the feasibility of the strategy, the role of the digital transition, the role of the innovation within the context of “Estonia 2035” and citizens’ expectations to the Riigikogu. “Estonia 2035” expressly describes the dream destination.
Spatial planning in Estonian towns has followed a fairly unruly path since the 1990s, with no broader vision to guide it. This has made the towns more inefficient and lowered the quality of their spaces.
The development of technology and innovation usually go hand in hand. If we want both the government and the private sector to provide better services to the public, it is necessary to find good and safe solutions for data processing.
Over the next decades, personal mobility is facing huge changes: because of developments in mitigating climate change, technological innovation, ageing of the population, but also the consumer and mobility habits of the Y-generation. The main challenges are linked to the more sustainable and environmental nature of mobility.
The increase of the importance of China in global economy and politics is strongly connected with developing of digital platforms. This is reflected in the painful reactions of the United States in regard to the digital infrastructure company Huawei and the social media application TikTok. It is necessary to pay more attention to China’s investments into the European digital platforms and into platform-type companies in the wider sense.
In 2017–2018, the Foresight Centre created three sets of scenarios: on governance and e-governance, labour market, and productivity. What could we conclude from these sets today – can we already see where we are coming from, and where we are going?
The discussion of any topic in the European Union starts with the question: what is the legal basis here? Which article of the Treaty on European Union provides the framework for joint action? In other words, what jurisdiction have the supreme decision makers in the EU – the Member States – granted the EU institutions?
* The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author.
The end of this political cycle in Europe (2019–2024) coincides with an historical occasion to celebrate the twenty years since the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union.
* The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the few truly common European Union policies, having a history of more than 50 years. The goals of the CAP have remained the same across decades. In essence, they can be summarized as follows: to produce more food with greater profitability while guaranteeing stable food supply and affordable prices. This means that the underlying principle of the CAP is food security.
By leaving the European Union, the United Kingdom became free of its decades-long hesitations and doubts regarding the EU membership and the EU developments.
‘There are no good times, there are no bad. The present is all there is to be had. What starts will never come to an end. Neither beauty nor ugliness is part of the plot’.
With these verses, the Estonian poet Artur Alliksaar has perfectly captured the nature of time and reality. It is especially topical in these trying times of global virus outbreak, but also relevant for the real-time economy concept.
The key words of the European Parliament elections in May 2019 were increased turnout, political fragmentation, and stable support for populist, extremist, and Euro-sceptic forces.
The European Parliament, a globally unique directly elected international representative body, is the carrier of European values and identity. It has kept pace with important changes in Europe, often being the initiator and trendsetter in them.
The article opens the context of the European Green Deal.
* I use the term "Green Deal" to denote "European Green Deal for the European Union (EU) and its citizenns" (European Commission 2019a)
The article analyses aspect of research funding in Estonia.
When the University of Tartu was established in 1632, the Western European progressive scientific worldview spread to the territory of what today is the Republic of Estonia. At the same time, that gave an impetus to higher education becoming more widespread in the region on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.
The classic academies have been established with a twofold goal: to be resolutely committed to the advancement of science and to advise government authorities. In order to give adequate and timely advice, it is important to be engaged in the shaping of policy on all levels, starting from discussions of topics and goals of political parties. Several members of the Estonian Academy of Sciences (EAS) have contributed to active policy-making over decades, among other things, through performing the duties of the speaker of the Riigikogu and serving as ministers or parliament members.
State reform is an immanent, i.e. an inherent phenomenon associated with any type of national independence. After all, a country will never be complete; this is even more true for a small developing country with a catch-up economy and an ambition to significantly improve the quality of life.
The article explores the challenges connected to the study committees of the Riigikogu, using the example of the State Reform Study Committee formed by the 13th Riigikogu (2015–2019).
The Resolution of the Riigikogu “The Fundamentals of the State Reform and Good Administration”, adopted on 20 February 2019, sets out seven general principles that primarily the members of the Riigikogu should keep in mind when initiating draft legislation in the Riigikogu in the future.
Concerning the state reforms and the related debates in Estonia, it is important to take note not only of the choices made, or the choices that the political powers and interest groups mainly wish to make, but also the choices that have not been discussed.
The record proportion of votes cast electronically in the Riigikogu elections is the result of the voters’ confidence in this way of voting.
In Estonia, judicial control has been applied to administrative rulings for the past one hundred years. The 1992 Constitution ensures the protection of the individual rights in separate administrative courts.
During the last 25 years, the Estonian legislation has been characterised by frequent and fundamental changing of the laws. At the same time, the Constitution of Estonia has been amended very little, only for five times.
Lessons for the World Bank?
The article assesses the impact of the Estonian administrative-territorial reform of 2017 on settlement and regional economic development.
When we are concerned about the size and welfare of the population of Estonia, for many people, this concern has a common subtext or principal tone – how are the Estonians doing, the native inhabitants of this corner of the Earth, the small nation of less than a million? Throughout the duration of its existence, a threat has been hanging over its head – to be or not to be, can it preserve the population size needed to preserve its own culture, so that the neighbours and the immigrants arriving here will not assimilate it?
This article presents the main results if an integrated long-term employment and population projection for Estonia until the end of the 21st century.
Over the next decades, the Estonian state and society will have to adapt to population ageing, which will be the most significant demographic change with far-reaching implications across several domains of social life.
The article deals with the interconnections between the development of population and society’s capability to innovate.
* Peer-reviewed article.
Besides the number of population, the connections of people with Estonia are also important in population policy.
My goal in writing this article was to examine motherhood from the perspective of the expectations of the society, as well as the individual experiences of a woman and her lifeworld.
* Peer-reviewed article.
One of the innovative focuses of population policy is the inclusion of empowerment and quality of life. The article discusses these issues, proceeding from the point of view of essential citizenship, or the subjectness of people in the society and the state.
Ten years have passed from the great economic recession of 2008. Although the economy started to recover rapidly from the first stage of the crisis, it became clear in a couple of years that it had revealed several significant deficiencies in the functioning of the European Economic and Monetary Union and the common currency euro.
This article deals with the development trends that await us in the coming 20–25 years. On the basis of these trends, an overview of the skills and knowledge that will probably be necessary on the future labour market is drafted.
* The article was written with the support of the financing of the study of the Foresight Centre “Supply of Labour Force in Estonia: Long-term Perspective” and RITA1 project “Migration dependency and integration challenges for Estonia, employers, communities and educational system”.
The development of economy in Estonia during the last two decades has brought us among the developed countries, but future economic progress will not take place by itself. In order to achieve that, we need structural changes in business sector, and political decisions to support those changes. The article highlights ten activities that might speed up the development of Estonia. Five of them concern business, and five are related to government.
The Financing and Organisation Task Force for Research and Higher Education was formed on the initiative of the Research and Development Council and operated with the support of the Government Office. One of its tasks was providing an assessment of the current situation of the competitiveness of Estonia’s research and higher education system and submitting proposals on how to improve the situation.
The article asks what the possibilities and stimuli for moving towards knowledge economy are in Estonia today, and how to create such stimuli. Estonia can choose between market-based and coordinated market economy models, and in the case of the latter, it has to be decided whether the coordinator is the state, the social partners or large corporations. International comparison shows that coordinated systems develop more rapidly, and it seems that as a result of the market-based model, education, research and production systems all develop in their own way in Estonia.
Estonia could become a pioneer of bio-economy if we increase the use of renewable resources to replace the non-renewable ones. Forest is for our country what oil is to some others, and it is up to us to make wise choices in managing this resource.
Alcohol excise duty has several purposes. The most important of them is restricting consumption through increasing the retail price, but the revenues of the state budget, suppressing of shadow economy and the problems of border trade are also relevant factors. Several factors (among other things, the prices in neighbouring countries and the competitiveness of companies) have to be simultaneously taken into account in establishing optimal excise duty rates, and if a mistake is made with the level of the excise duty rates, it will be accompanied by negative consequences in the society.
The article compares three possible paradigms for explaining the processes taking place in global economy and macroregions: globalisation-centred, geopolitical and geo-economic paradigms. Their focus topics are dealt with, and the limits of their explanatory capacities for comprehending the processes that are going on are discussed. It is found that although globalisation continues, the normative type of globalisation-centred approach, which requires that the states move to the background is not longer sufficient. Business and technology centred globalisation has setbacks, it can be noticed that the states have started to make stronger attempts to curb globalisation (neo-mercantilism, certain protectionist tendencies, in Ian Bremmer’s terminology: gated globalisation).
* The article is written in cooperation of the author and the Foresight Centre of the Riigikogu.
Director of International Centre for Defence and Security Sven Sakkov analyses the state of world affairs and its developments since the end of the Cold War.
The article proceeds from the observance that technology is developing ever more rapidly, and applied science has an unquestionable impact on the processes in society and the lives of individuals, bringing along notable changes in the perspective of a decade, not a century. The focal research question discussed is in which sectors the emerging technologies will find military application and how much it will influence warfighting over the next 10 years.
* The article is a shorter version of the argumentative essay in English by the author, with the same title, which contains references to the sources of all statements and facts reflected here. In comparison to the original text, several sub-topics and arguments have been omitted due to restrictions on length, but on the other hand, some new ideas have been added. The presented military prospect for the use of innovative technologies is the author’s personal opinion, with a certain aim to intrigue and provoke the readers to think actively.
End of the Cold War and breaking up of the Soviet Union in 1991 caused real exhilaration in the West, and also in Russia. It was thought that now the age of great wars was over for ever in Europe, where two of the bloodiest world wars of humanity had taken place, and from then onwards, the countries would live in friendship and constructive mutual cooperation. And this is how it more or less happened during the last decade of the previous century.
Russia carries out and encourages ‘active measures’ in Europe to destabilise and confuse governments and societies. However, these are often opportunistic and shaped by local conditions. There is no grand strategy, beyond weakening the EU and NATO and creating a more conducive environment for itself.
* Galeotti, M. (2017). Controlling Chaos: How Russia manages its political war in Europe. European Council of Foreign Relations. ECFR. ‒ http://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/controlling_chaos_how_russia_manages_its_political_war_in_europe
National defence is no longer merely military defence that includes the activity of the armed forces to combat conventional threats. National security and the ensuring of national security affect the whole society, and therefore all segments of the society, both the public, private and third sector, must contribute to the protection of the state.
Is Estonia doing everything possible and necessary in its national defence legislative drafting to ensure its security? Unfortunately, not sufficiently so far, considering the regulation of the activities of courts under state of emergency, especially the state of war.
Essentially the problems of the European Union are not different from the problems faced by each democratic state. There are people who enjoy the open world and also get material benefit from it. And there are people who have lost the foothold that used to seem secure, and ask – what will become of me? The European Union should help the second category of people to cope better with their lives. But unfortunately they think that this union is the cause of all their problems.
Organization of meetings and events in the Presidency country as well as laying out of the agenda and facilitating the agreements have always been the main tasks of the Presidency country of the EU. The increased number of Member-States and discussion topics has also increased the importance of the Presidency country in influencing politics throughout the EU’s history. As the number of Member-States has increased, their interests have also become more diverse. And when the European Parliament received more rights to participate in the decision-making processes the Presidency country was forced to work more actively towards finding compromises in the EU legislation. From that point onwards it went beyond merely organizing meetings.
* Responsibility for the views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Before the coming Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, we would like to shed light on the digital issues that will be spoken about during the next six months and the events that deserve attention, and discuss what kind of inheritance Estonia plans to leave to the following presidencies.
We can use the public interest in the new building of the Estonian National Museum (ERM) to tell its story. This has given us an excellent opportunity to speak about the main events in the history of the Estonian nation over the last one hundred years, and more.
In 2016, the Estonian National Museum got a home of its own. For the first time in history, the Estonian National Museum has a house that has been designed and built especially for the museum. The environment that has been created for the museum gives it new possibilities for development, and it also gives us the right to ask what the significance of the Estonian National Museum is in the 21st century.
Innovation is considered one of the main driving forces of economy. Info-technological innovation as the basis and precondition of economic competitiveness is often mentioned in the national policies of Estonia, and in this context, small Estonia with its image of e-state has gained recognition. But is this enough for making a society innovative? What is the innovativeness of a society based on? What role creativity and education have, and what the historical experience of the Estonian society is in this field – these are the questions this article tries to answer.
Regional institutions of higher education have an important role not only in education and research policy, but also in the social-economic development of the whole region and shaping its long-term strategies.
In the future, the amount of digital information is going to explode, changing the role of the libraries. This will bring along new obligations and new challenges, and lead to the development of totally new services.
Dealing with the cultural heritage is always controversial. In its core lies an attempt to balance the interests of the owner with the interests of the general public in preserving the heritage. Heritage management can be successful only if it manages to grasp both the material assets that exist objectively in time and space, as well as taking an interest in the subjective categories of identity, values, and perception.
The paper entitled “Proposals for Management of Cultural Heritage and Cultural Landscapes” examines the problems related to the administration and protection of landscape, rural life and other traditional values in an era in which, even for rural populations, agriculture is being rapidly demoted to a subsidiary source of employment and income.
The nature of culture has been discussed both at its general level, as a network of traditions, values, creativity and layers of time, and in terms of fine arts and research. The article deals with national culture, a special phenomenon that combines both the original and the borrowed elements.
Studies have shown that while many indicators qualify Estonian businesses as innovative, they seem unable to convert this innovation into money. This article argues that the main reason why process innovation dominates and product innovation is low in the Estonian businesses is that meeting orders is the predominant business model among them. This means that the businesses have no contact with the end product, while their development methods mainly involve diversification of production opportunities and increase in quality and volumes. The issues of product development, supply chain management, marketing, and sales are largely ignored.
The Estonian migration policy must be managed and forward-looking. This is complicated because the preservation of the Estonian culture as well as managing in international competition must be kept in mind. The migration policy is a sensitive issue. Estonia has a numerous non-Estonian population and, through them, there is a continuous influx of “new immigrants” from the former USSR republics. Integrating them is a demanding challenge and therefore our social opinion is not very willing to listen to rational arguments.
It is a basic human right to leave one’s country freely. To enter another country freely is not. Permission is needed. It is common decency to give shelter to refugees when they are few. But one has the right to control one’s borders when there are so many refugees or other would-be immigrants that the society would crumble under their weight, or would change beyond recognition.
Social resources have so far been underestimated in Estonia, but if they were taken into use, it may bring along growth of productivity in economy and better functioning of all sectors of society. Economic activities, production, product development and marketing are actually work with people, involving them, listening to them and explaining your ideas.
When analysing the economic growth of Estonia that has slowed down, and the factors that influence the growth of productivity, it is inevitable to pay greater attention to the issues of product development. If product development is scarce, the goods produced and exported remain valued lower, and there is no movement from the raw material based economic model to the innovation model with greater added values.
In twenty-five years, Estonia has become a capable space nation. The intelligent and brave decisions of the 1990s on reorganising the network of research institutions, establishing a competition based system of research grants, introducing international expert analyses in assessing the performance indicators of research, and reshaping the decision making mechanism of higher education and research policy were instrumental in reshaping the Soviet style research system into a Western system in only a short time. Long-term strategic planning and strategic management increased state funding, and also supported the increasing presence of research in the private sector. A strong push towards the development of the research system has come from the EU Structural Funds. This has helped to create a contemporary research environment, improve the quality of research, and increase the overall volumes.
This article has two aims: to offer a theoretical approach to defiing of state identity, taking into account the context of multicultural society, and to analyse the data of the latest monitoring of the integration of Estonian society in the light of such an approach.
The Estonian Public Broadcasting Act sets nine goals for Estonian Public Broadcasting, and formulates eleven functions Estonian Public Broadcasting has to perform in order to achieve these goals.
On 28 September at 6.55 a.m., the programme director pushed the button at the control centre of the brand new TV studio of Estonian Public Broadcasting and started the fist direct broadcast of the Russian-language TV programme. The long-planned ETV+ rose into the air, with new enthusiastic pilots on board, and these pilots knew nothing yet of the number of potential passengers, and just hoped at the bottom of their hearts that the flght that had started would last a long time.
This paper sets out to provide an analysis of refugee integration policies in Sweden and Norway, by means of comparative analysis.
In 2014, the fist legislative amendments were adopted in Estonia that will change the current policy of payment of the pension for incapacity for work – starting from 2016, the conditions for payment will be changed, and the requirements of being active will be established for people with partial capacity for work who receive the benefi. The related political process has been controversial, it has brought about demonstrations of disabled people, and a petition and a memorandum were submitted to the parliament.
The universities have been studying how their alumni cope in the labour market since the beginning of the 2000s. However, a comprehensive simultaneous research covering all universities was conducted for the fist time in 2011, when the graduates of 2009 were interviewed (Eamets, Krillo, Themas 2011). The alumni study of 2012 dealt with the factors inflencing the choice of specialty, satisfaction with studies, working during studies, plans after graduation, success on the labour market and acquired competences. The assessment of foreign alumni of the higher education given in Estonia was also studied. The article focuses on two questions: 1) How do university graduates cope in the labour market? 2) To what extent are they satisfid with the studies they have completed? The study was commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Research and the Archimedes Foundation.
Laura Kirss, Miko Kupts, Reelika Leetmaa, Märt Masso, Liina Osila, Magnus Piirits, Mari Rell, Pirjo Turk.
The Estonian population is decreasing, and consequently so is the number of people of working age. This is mostly caused by the negative natural increase rate as well as emigration.
The salient feature of the economy today is the extremely fast pace of development. It has become extremely important for businesses, organisations, regions and states alike to remain competitive and to ensure sustainability.
Estonia might lose its edge in education, which in turn would affect the competitiveness of the country, if no rapid and fundamental changes are made in the situation of teachers.
The article analyses the possibility to amend the Estonian Constitution that entered into force in 1992, and outlines an action plan for this purpose.
The article presents the organisation of work, objectives and results of the committee of experts set up by the Government in the years 1996 – 1998.
The presentation dedicated to the problems of the Constitution analyses the practice of constitutional review carried out by the Supreme Court to date.
The article provides an international perspective on the questions of corruption and the fight against this scourge.
For the first time, the Riigikogu, the Government of the Republic and the general public have at their disposal official material “An Overview of the Application of the Anti-Corruption Act in 1999”. The legislator now has feedback on how the law is interpreted and how its requirements are observed.
The full Estonian language text of the report is available on the Riigikogu homepage at: http://www.riigikogu.ee/rk_komisjonid.html#P49_3935
The article discusses certain widespread confusing notions about social sciences and their place in the society.
*peer-reviewed article
Psychology can aid policymaking in three main areas.
* peer-reviewed article
The article focuses on two interrelated topics.
* peer-reviewed article
The article looks at the Estonian earth’s crust and bio-economy resources on the basis of two large applied research projects. The concept of the article has been prepared with the support of funding from the Estonian Research Council. On the basis of the experiences of the practical carrying out of these projects, it can be discussed if, why and how Estonia as a country with a large renewable and non-renewable resource stock should invest in the research and development of resources in order to realise its development potential.
* Peer-reviewed article
Tourism has become the most important source of income in many countries. World practice has shown that no country has become tourist destination by itself, but with years of targeted work in developing and implementing national tourism policies. Recent years have been successful for the Estonian tourism. According to the statistics, 2.14 million foreign tourists stayed in accommodation establishments in 2018, the export of tourism services accounted for 10.2% of the Estonian goods and services exports and the share of tourism in GDP and employment was approximately 8 per cent, taking into account indirect effects.
* Peer-reviewed article
The democratic potential of the Estonian society can be assessed through the younger generation – what the patterns of their participation, their attitudes towards social-political topics and their barriers to being active citizens are.
* Peer-reviewed article.
In recent years, the education researchers at the University of Tartu have focused on ways to support the development of students’ generic skills in Estonian schools, where the national curriculum is subject-based and teaching has traditionally focused on subjects.
* Peer-reviewed article
Should all children, regardless of their mother tongue, study in the Estonian language? What is the most effective linguistic arrangement for minority pupils in Estonia? Is bilingual education more effective for minority pupils, compared to monolingual education in Russian as the mother tongue with Estonian as the second language?
* Peer-reviewed article
Nikolai Maim (1884–1976) was the only professor present at the opening of the Faculty of Law of the Estonian-language University of Tartu on 1 December 1919.
* Peer-reviewed article
There are not many places where Russia would be so close to Europe as in Narva: one only needs to cross the river.
EU financial perspective 2014–2020 continues to support Estonian investment into the objectives prescribed by the Cohesion Policy. The share of ESF measures will increase thanks to the common floor set by the Council decision.
Education, scientific research, development of technology and innovations play an important role in the development of modern societies. Today, but even more tomorrow the wellbeing of the society and clean environment are dependent on the development of science, innovations and their practical applications.
Culture as a purposeful coordinated joint activity surrounds us everywhere and it is difficult to find in any human community something which would not constitute culture or have no relation to it.
The article discusses the translation of EU documents into Estonian by the EU institutions, and the changing role of translators in this process.
In the author’s opinion, the trends that characterise the development of population in Estonia at present generally are not positive.
In the second part of Cervantes’s famous novel about the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the latter is appointed governor of the island Barataria.
*The essay is published in Estonian with the permission of the author. Translated from German by Krista Räni.
*Quotes from the book: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Teravmeelne hidalgo don Quijote La Manchast (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha). Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, I–II, 1987–1988, translator Aita Kurfeldt.
The author divides the Estonian foreign policy after the restoration of independence into three large periods.
*This article reflects the personal views of the author.
The main objective of medicine is to stop the suffering of patients or, in certain cases, at least to alleviate it. However, the impact of medicine on the unfolding of a human life manifests itself in a considerably wider perspective than solely by restoring the normalcy of life opportunities of a particular person.
The author recalls that the Estonian Human Development Report 2009 was recently deliberated in the Riigikogu as a matter of national importance.
The writer discusses whether we have a moral right to leave problems we have not succeeded in coping with for future generations to resolve. We cannot even foresee what will happen in the next 100 years, yet nuclear waste remains hazardous for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Our geographical location is immutable as well, and geography will determine more than politics in the long run.
The poor condition of the Latvian economy is common knowledge, the author acknowledges. There has been very much discussion and writing on the subject recently in Estonia. But what does the average Estonian know about other facets, corners and recesses of life in Latvia?
When she accepted the challenge of being appointed Estonia’s cultural attaché in Moscow, the writer was aware of all of the risks and historical baggage as well as the possibilities represented by Estonian-Russian relations on the political and cultural front.
This essay draws on the author’s academic activities in the field of human rights law and scholarship. A major “ideological” controversy in the field is the question whether human rights are truly universal or culturally conditioned. Another, related question is what the human rights policy of the European states should look like.
*The writing of this essay was supported by the Estonian Research Council Grant No. 7182.
As is well known, the concept of memory entered into contemporary discussions by way of its opposition to history.
The Constitution, which has been in force for fifteen years, is the fourth basic law in Estonia’s nearly ninety years of statehood. It is a good time to consider: what we can thank our Constitution for?
Attempts to introduce in Estonia the ethos of a Nordic-like compassionate state has not fallen on especially receptive ground.
In Estonia as well as other parts in Europe, the search has been on for some time for the magical cure that would make more women have children.
The article discusses Estonia's economic success and future prospects. In order to assess today's results, recollections, assessments and hopes are presented dating from the early 1990s, when Estonia regained its independence. It all began with economic crisis, modest skills and knowledge about market economy, and a considerably poorer situation than in the Central European countries.
The basic question raised in this article is what are the common values that unite the 25 peoples and 455 million people that constitute Europe.
Information-based societies and economies can be thought of in two different ways - according to sphere or according to decision-making mechanism.
Due to historical reasons, the experiences of the EU's 25 member states in relations with Russia differ according to whether they are or were metropolitan or non-metropolitan, large or small, and old or new.
The European Union is an association of democratic nation-states based on the rule of law. We should ask: 1) to what extent are the national, democratic and legal properties transferable to unions of states? 2) which properties must be transferred? 3) is this a spontaneous process, an inevitable result of union, or must there be additional efforts? 4) what might the influence on nation-states be - stimulating or repressive, preservative or destructive?
One of the goals of the discussion is to show that the theory of collective responsibility (like many other similar groups of theories) is demagogical and harmful, designed to disenfranchise people and free those in power from primary responsibility over what happens in a state.
It takes quite a bit of time for a democratic society to crystallize. In order for society to develop a firm moral underpinning and such a respected body of citizens, many other factors besides time are required, such as people who understand and contribute to the social and cultural fabric in sufficient number as to form a kind of cooperation-revering critical mass that would be able to, and indeed desire to, keep society within certain boundaries and not permit the borders of tolerance to be exceeded. Considering Estonian history, academics should take the place of noblemen, for they truly revere honor and dignity above all and serve their own people in the first order.
"Power" and "spirit" (or "intellect") are popular metaphors in Estonia in discourse about society.
How did parliamentary procedural rules develop over the two years after the first free post-war elections in Estonia in March 1990?
The massive enlargement of the European Union in 2004 ushered in a fundamental change – eight out of the ten new Member States had felt the yoke of Communist totalitarianism.
* This is the 4th and last instalment in the series of articles published by Riigikogu Toimetised, where the author reminisces on the first fifteen years as an Estonian MEP (see also Riigikogu Toimetised No 42, 43, 44).
As a result of the extensive 2004 enlargement or the European Union, the Baltic Sea has to all intents and purposes become an internal sea of the Union, surrounded by eight Member States.
As a long-time Member of the European Parliament (EP), the author shares his memories of the first EP elections in Estonia and the popular attitudes in Estonia in 2004 when we joined the European Union.
My doctoral thesis Pääsemine ja häving: Demokraatia mõju Soome ja Eesti julgeolekule aastatel 1918–1948 (Salvation and Destruction: Democracy’s Impact on the Security of Finland and Estonia in 1918–1948) argues that the relationship between democracy and security can be reduced to the three classical dilemmas: freedom vs. security, freedom vs. sovereignty, and sovereignty vs. security. The aim of the article is to examine these dilemmas by providing examples from Estonian and Finnish history.
After Estonia restored its independence in 1991, the first instinct of the national leaders was to join the united Europe as soon as possible.
The article reviews the state reform initiatives and activities in Estonia over the recent years, interpreting these from the point of view of research literature on the topic. We can identify three major initiatives: by the Foundation for State Reform, the Government, and the Riigikogu.
Jüri Adams, member of four Riigikogus and a co-author of the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia, discusses the story of the development of the rules of procedure of the Riigikogu in his series of writings. This part is a sequel to Part I that was published in “Riigikogu Toimetised” (“Proceedings of the Riigikogu”) No. 39.
Social capital and social cohesion are underrated values because they are more complicated issues to discuss than material values, legislation, and governance and administrative structures.
Historically, Estonia has been part of the German legal space. The Estonian parliamentarism was basically established on German models. The main terminology for parliamentary activities also developed as translations of corresponding German terms. From the point of view of the Estonian language, they are not always adequate and tend to create confusion nowadays.
The article analyses what was the competence of the parliament in shaping and implementing foreign policy in the Republic of Estonia in 1918–1939 like in comparison with other institutions of state authority, and assesses whether the Parliament could perform the foreign policy tasks, obligations and rights provided by the law. During the period under discussion, several major legislative and political changes took place in the division of foreign policy competence.
* The article is based on the author’s Master’s thesis “Political and Legal Competence of the Estonian Parliament in Foreign Policy 1917–1940”, which was defended at the University of Tartu in 2018 and was awarded August Rei Scholarship in Parliamentary Studies.
Various circumstances combined enable a party in Poland to win a majority of parliamentary seats with 38 per cent of the votes. It is now using this fluke outcome to ensconce itself permanently, following the Hugo Chavez path in Venezuela. In Estonia, the largest party has rarely reached even 30 percent of the seats, and fond opinions have been voiced that Estonia’s electoral law supposedly prevents a one-party majority. This article reviews Estonia’s electoral history and the desiderata for adequate electoral rules. It presents the universal laws that connect the number and size of parties to the number of seats available, as documented in Shugart and Taagepera, Votes from Seats (2017).
In the same way as we have seen the arrival of the Internet, and how it essentially changed the existing way of communicating and even the relations between the people, the hero of World War II Marshal Montgomery saw the arrival of weapons of mass destruction, their use, and how it essentially changed the existing international security situation. This was one reason why I thought it was important to introduce the readers of Riigikogu Toimetised one chapter from his book A Concise History of Warfare. This chapter, The Nuclear Age, deals with the coming of nuclear age, and its fruits.
* Montgomery, B. L. (1968). A Concise History of Warfare. UK: George Rainbird Ltd.
The study argues that 16 and 17 year old adolescents have minimal skills and knowledge required for a competent electoral choice. This study is based on a 10-week e-course “Basics of an Active Citizen”, which was conducted from 9 January until 20 March 2017. It involved 29 students from 24 secondary schools in Estonia taking tests on required course materials and answering two reflective questions weekly. The reflection questions were designed so that it was possible to offer different answers in a personal way without contradicting the information in weekly study materials.
Based on the current experiences – on the examples of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova – it can be concluded that Russia has got a systemic approach and long-term programme for drawing “near-abroad” countries into a dependency relationship and then politically realising this dependency relationship. To this is often added the advantage in terms of distance and history over other regional great powers in the realisation of its plans. Taking into account the rise of oil and gas prices in 2016, and Russia’s strategic ambitions, it is fairly rational to expect an improvement and wider use of Russia’s imperial pattern in 2017–2018, while for many target countries the situation is already complicated as it is and offers few ways for exit. Russia’s ambitions in the development of dependent partnership and achievement of political control concern in particular Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, but they have implications also on the Baltic states in so far as these patterns can be applied also to us, should favourable conditions arise.
Like Estonia, Latvia will soon be celebrating its centenary. The notes of Kārlis Skalbe, a Latvian writer and activist from the time when the Republic of Latvia was founded, continue to be relevant to this day.
In 2016, the President of Estonia was for the first time elected at extraordinary elections. 25 years ago the authors of the Constitution of Estonia were convinced that they had managed to develop a mechanism pursuant to which the political parties have to cooperate as effectively as they can in order that the candidate would win the support of two thirds of the members of the parliament at the elections in the Riigikogu. If the political parties fail to achieve that, the elections would transfer to the electoral college, a body specially formed for the purpose of electing the President, where the required quota would be smaller, only the majority of the electoral college members who participated in voting. Namely this low quota required in the electoral college gave the authors of the Constitution the assurance that the President would be elected during the regular elections.
The geographical position and smallness of Estonia are a great possibility and at the same time also an inevitable challenge for us. Estonia is the smallest country in Europe and in the whole Western world that has managed to survive and succeed in spite of its political-geographical location.
Today, media is ever more actively and effectively used as an instrument for exerting influence on public opinion and political decisions. Non-democratic countries like Russia use media as means of propaganda in shaping ideological attitudes. Russia has also considerably increased military activities near the Baltic States, and continuously declared NATO its main enemy. Information field that distorts reality may damage the cohesion of different groups of population and create instability in the society, therefore Estonia should pay more attention to attacks targeted against the cohesion of the society, and develop psychological defence and resistance against anti-Estonian propaganda activities. In order to ensure the security of the society and the state and the sense of security of the people, and to prevent crises and increase confidence in the activities of the state, it is necessary to develop the psychological defence of the state more than it has been done so far. From the point of view of Estonia’s strategic communication and psychological defence, it is important to know how Estonia is depicted in Russian media. Unfortunately it has been assessed only empirically.
Post-modern technological factors of societal development (Internet, digitalization, sharing economy, etc.) are objectively aimed against the fundamentals of modernistic culture. Globalization sweeps away relative economic advantages, national traditions, languages, cultural codes (rituals, carnivals, etc., as defined by Meletinsky). The migration crisis not only demonstrates this objective tendency, but also the total inability of the European elites to manage new problems of significant magnitude. Neither Merkel nor Hollande are leaders, but bookkeeper types that perform at the mid-managerial level of a mid-size company. Two crises combine to form a perfect storm: objective globalization (or Europeanization), and mediocrity in cabinets.
Should democratic civic education produce informed, patriotic, conformist and law-abiding citizens, or critical individuals with a mind of their own, who are capable of democratic participation both in defence of their individual interests and in extension of social justice in the democratic sense? Should all citizens, including future initiators, activists, spokespersons and contesters, first learn the sense of responsibility, conformity and patriotism? How many critical citizens does a democracy need? Do we need critical citizens in larger or smaller numbers during times of crisis?
The weakening of parliaments that has been diagnosed in political science is associated with the changes in the society and structural changes in the political decision-making process. The structural change in the general public, mainly the emergence of the mass media, is an essential challenge for parliamentarianism, as the vital power resources of parliaments lie in functioning external communication.
The idea of Estonian nationhood was born in the 19th century in a crucible of centuries-old antagonism of German and Russian expansionism.
The article discusses the role of populism in transition to democracy and in the performance of consolidated liberal democracies.
Education is sure to have a positive effect on a person, yet we cannot describe its specifi working mechanism. Despite this, the time that is viewed as necessary for getting a good general education has kept on increasing over the centuries and decades. Maybe it has even become too long. Enthusiasts of different filds have each promoted their own discipline, which has continued to make the curricula longer and more detailed in content.
Abstract. Parliamentary democracy has been widely embraced by politicians and especially by the scholarly community but remains less widely understood.
*European Journal of Political Research 37: 261–289, 2000. © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
At the time when European security is being threatened by Russia’s aggressiveness, the expansion of Islamic extremism, cyber terrorism, the shortage of resources, and poverty migration, Estonia’s security can be secured above all by a more coherent society and an internationally competitive economy.
*The article is based on Marko Mihkelson's speech at the security debate in the Riigikogu on 16 October 2014.
After the Soviet occupation Ida-Virumaa has become a county that lags behind the Estonian average both in its social and economic development. The population of this region is one of the fastest declining and ageing in Estonia; besides that, different social and ethnic-cultural groups are mutually little integrated and the region as a whole has also remained alien to other regions of the country.
The article compares the population policy attitudes expressed by Estonia and by another 30 European countries.The article defines population policy in a narrower demographic sense. We discuss population policy as a policy that intends to change the population figures through either birth rate or migration. Health policy is left out of the analyses because there is not a single state in Europe that is not working towards reducing mortality.
Over the last 15 year, the pension system in Estonia has undergone multiple reforms, such as the introduction of the social tax dependent 1st pillar, the introduction of the 2nd and 3rd pillars, or the raising of the retirement age. Every reform leads to changes for the beneficiaries of the system. The changes similarly affect the pension system where reforms have caused changes both within the confines of one generation and between generations. This article focuses on the inter-generation effects of the pension system and is a brief summary of a 2014 Master's thesis from the University of Tartu.
*Peer reviewed research paper.
This article gives an overview of the research project “The effects of family benefits and financing of early childhood education and care”, which was initiated by the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Science, and was carried out by Praxis Center for Policy Studies. The research was supported by the Government Office’s Fund of Wise Decisions and the European Social Fund.
Using qualitative content analysis, this case study examined the indications of sustainability in the budget books of the Tallinn City Government during the first independence period of the Republic of Estonia (I), the period of occupation (II) and after the restoration of independence (III).
The article discusses how to find a balance between the national interests of the EU Member States and the unified Europe.
The article deals with the role of foreign support in the state budget of Estonia and more broadly in the development of economy during the last decade.
The role of universities in society is to create new knowledge through research and development, and to teach educated people so that they would be able in the future to cope successfully in the changing world and develop the economy and science of Estonia. Research and higher education are directly linked and require common integrated approach at the state level.
In Europe, austerity policy was considered the ideal model for the stabilisation of states with payment difficulties during the global financial crisis which began in 2008. However, in spite of their economic reasonableness austerity measures were seldom applied in the Member States of the European Union because of the social pressure and political risks that accompany them. The main justified fear of the governments not implementing these measures was not that the austerity measures would not work, but rather the opinion that austerity policy would bring along the displeasure of the voters and that would result in losing the elections.
Employers have pointed to the need to facilitate the immigration of top specialists, and to the shortage of skilled workers. Universities and research groups of centres of excellence have spoken about the facilitation of the immigration of foreign students and researchers. Different views on immigration have been expressed, but detailed information about immigrants is seldom given.
From time to time, our political press asks whether it makes sense that the government coalition in Toompea is formed by one set of political parties, while the local power is in the hands of a completely different set. Sometimes this difference can be presented as an almost tragic opposition, as a couple of parties did at the last, 2013 local elections in Tallinn.
Over the recent years, the discussion about the activities, goals, internal democracy and financing rules set for the parties has attracted a lot of attention. Citizen associations, journalists, and the parties themselves have, in light of larger and smaller problems and scandals, proposed different amendments to the acts that regulate the functioning of parties.
Eleven years ago, the gender wage gap between men and women in Estonia was 22% to the disadvantage of women. In spring 2013 we had to sadly admit that the gender wage gap had reached 28%.
The Chancellery of the Riigikogu organised the international seminar Procedures and Practices for Debating and Approving Long Term National Strategies in Parliaments in May 2013. The discussion centred on strategic documents for planning long term national development (development plans, main directions and foundations of policies, strategic plans).
Estonia is a European Rechtsstaat, however, attached to this generally true statement there are still a few „buts” that require more detailed explanations. The principle of Rechtsstaat or the rule of law is to protect a person from the arbitrary exercise of public authority. It is of great importance that all legislation was in accordance with the rule of law, that all three powers of the state – the legislative, the executive and the judicial power – respected the Constitution. At the same time it may happen that the laws and court decisions alone are not enough, that from legal point of view everything seems to be all right, but in reality... Therefore the European Court of Human Rights in its case law has constantly upheld the position that the purpose of the European Convention on Human Rights is not to ensure theoretical or illusory rights but the rights that are effective and that can be exercised in practice.
Why does Europe need federal government? Can Europe’s strength be achieved through federal government? If yes, then what is the model of federation most suitable for Europe like? If no, then what are the best ways for developing cooperation and increasing competitiveness in the globalising world? So far these questions have not yet received an exhaustive answer that can be effectively implemented. In Estonia, the social scientists and law professors have paid little attention to these issues. But this does not mean that we should not think about them. If we do not, others will think and decide for us, because the establishing of a federation is a topical issue for both the European Union and the elite of its Member States, and at the level of civil society.
The article analyses what is the causal relationship between federalisation, integration process, Europeanisation and overcoming the economic crisis; if federalisation is possible considering the positions the Member States have at the moment, and what choices would correspond to Estonia’s interests. Federalisation can be based only on the agreement of all Member States. All Member States and the European Parliament have to support the changing of fundamental agreements.
The death of the Venezuelan populist leader Hugo Chávez and his successor’s narrow victory at the presidential elections have once again brought to the fore the abundance of left and centre-left governments in Latin America and the issue of cooperation between the Americas.
The data in the World Factbook on the life expectancy in Estonia in 2012 show that among 222 countries, we rank 117th. The average life expectancy of the people of Estonia born in 2012 is 73.58 years: 68.3 years for men and 79.19 years for women. Life expectancy can be longer only when people are healthy. Thus, it can be said that in 116 countries health is supported more and damaged less than in Estonia, because there is no reason to presume that the genetic material of the people living in our country does not enable us to live as long as the people in Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands. Long life is an issue of making certain choices.
Involvement of citizens in decision-making and also the cooperation between agencies are topical issues in both the broader context of governance of the state and in the narrower context of youth policy.
The aim of this short overview of the federalisation of Europe is to provide a brief insight to the most evident legal developments of the European Union (EU) towards deeper integration and the reasons why questions about it have risen.
When the citizens of several Muslim countries came to protest on the streets at the same time with the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the notion ‘Arab Spring’ was launched.
Establishing a citizenship regime is a very complex matter where one has to find the best possible balance between human rights, the functioning of the state as a whole, and a practical administrative solution. One also has to consider what kind of solutions are legitimate enough in the given social space of values and actions. The European states are of different opinions on the matter of allowing or prohibiting multiple citizenship.
Creating insurance against incapacity for work that would be favourable for workers with health problems, rational from the point of view of using the means of social insurance and acceptable to employers is a real challenge for Estonian policy shapers.
In the light of the political scandals that have been lately discussed in the media, Transparency International Estonia has reached the conviction that it would be reasonable for the members of the Riigikogu to systematically discuss the ethics issues and to create a code of ethics or a code of conduct for the members of the Riigikogu.
Climate change makes the states look for new solutions in energy sector to replace burning of fossil fuels. The European Commission and the European Parliament have made several legislative initiatives. A target has been set for 2020 to produce in the European Union at least 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources.
According to labour research, in Estonia good Estonian language skill of non-Estonians is connected with 5 percent points smaller unemployment rate. Surprisingly, its role in explaining better income is modest, because Russian men who can speak Estonian well do not earn more than Russian men who cannot speak Estonian at all.
20 years ago, in 1992, Estonia regained independence, and the constitutional referendum as well as the elections to the VII Riigikogu were held. Voting has never been exclusively limited to election day.
The article analyses different aspects of the Estonian asylum policy, first of all focusing on the conditions of receiving the asylum seekers.
Estonia has received refugees and implemented asylum policy only since 1997, when the first Refugees Act entered into force.
Estonian elections in 2011 were held under the conditions of high unemployment (16.9%) and rather small inflation (2.7%); the real growth of Estonian GDP had turned positive in 2010, after two years of decrease.
The article deals with the part of electorate that did not attend the elections.
In the article the author uses the data from the voter polling conducted by the Institute of Government and Politics of the University of Tartu in March 2011.
The functioning and quality of representative democracies can be assessed on the basis of how the political parties compete between themselves for the voters of the electors and how the voters make their voting decisions.
This article provides a brief focused overview of the OECD analysis of the functioning of Estonian governance sector “Towards a Single Government Approach”.
With all due respect to the authors of the Estonian Constitution who once wrote it, the author of this article considers this Act a positively dilettantish and outdated text which requires revision and reorganisation with a fresh eye.
The author of this article does not support Rait Maruste’s proposal to start a thorough revision of the Estonian Constitution adopted by a referendum eighteen and a half years ago.
The author stresses that although, at first glance, the Estonian Constitution and the real life are no longer moving at the same pace in many regards, we do not have to throw our Constitution to the dustbin with shame in the light of this knowledge.
Research has shown that the positions of politicians and journalists influence the opinion of voters more than pre-election public opinion polls.
Involvement is much spoken about in Estonia but actual cooperation between the public and decision-makers rarely happens, not to speak about giving the right to make decisions to the public. Again an again, decision-makers find that they alone are the wisest and the most proper persons to set things right.
A small state like Estonia must keep pace with others in the development of energy. Decisions for the future concerning energy will have a long-term impact on the security policy of our state and the subsistence capacity of the whole population. For this reason, broad-minded energy specialists need to be involved in making the relevant political decisions.
Sustainability in Estonian energy sector is based on oil shale industry and mainly on the Baltic and Estonian power plants that were built in Soviet time.
Can a scientist of a certain field assume a position of the scientist in a field which he or she does not know?
Even though the organization of elections in Estonia is based primarily on the enthusiasm of the election organizers who do this work as a additional job, we have managed in two decades to complete the building of a reliable and modern electoral system that is capable from an information technology and technical standpoint of making use of lists of registered voters.
*The article is based on the report of the author delivered at the conference „Elections and Governing in Information Society” on 20 November 2009. See also Maandi, K. (1995). Elections and Referendums in Estonia 1989–1995.
The writer recalls that in late 2008, the Riigikogu began discussing possible amendment of the Local Government Council Election Act.
The writer believes that the 2009 local elections attested to how flexibly politicians were able to adapt to a changing situation.
The writer believes that things have gone fairly well for Estonia as a member state in its first five years in the European Union.
The question as to whether agriculture and rural life are capable of developing independently or whether they are kept afloat only by subsidies pervades every discussion held on the topic of rural life and agriculture.
Everybody wants their daily bread and other sources of sustenance to be healthful and made in a way that is responsible with regard to the environment.
The preparation of the new draft Basic Schools and Upper Secondary Schools Act was occasioned by the need to significantly improve and supplement the legislative framework pertaining to general educational schools.
Discussion in the European Union does not concern the progressive income tax itself, but rather the number and level of income brackets.
The author believes that Estonia’s fiscal policy is outdated and in need of serious reconsideration because it is no longer sustainable in its present form.
The current problems in the world economy are forcing countries to find measures to ease the impacts of the crisis, and this is also a relevant issue in Estonia. History has seen a variety of different methods to overcome crisis; the best options are measures that do not require excessive financial resources yet have an impact on various parties. One measure – increasing energy saving – has an effect on the state, households and firms.
The author explains the factors that led the Riigikogu at the beginning of last year to form a working group devoted to analyzing the activity of the past activity of the parliament and issuing recommendations how to restructure the work of the Riigikogu if necessary.
The writer believes that five years ago, eurorealism meant the ability to see the dangers from overambitiousness and centralization of the European Union, but today realism means that the hazards lying in store for the European Union in future must be assessed soberly.
Looking back at the events in Georgia and thinking about Estonia, the writer finds one clear common denominator – the state’s weakness in responding to a critical situation, which actually stems from the fact that no one believes in the likelihood of anything similar happening.
The draft Employment Contracts Act – which had been discussed thoroughly and at length by social partners, with the parties finally reaching consensus on its main points – was presented to the public on the Estonian Television programme “Foorum”.
The biggest flaw with the draft new Employment Contracts Act which was introduced in January lies in that the employer and the employee were treated as equal, even though the employee is the weaker side of the relationship.
The draft employment act prepared in January favoured the employer but was insulting and shocking to employees.
The Riigikogu constitutional committee is of the position that a number of the provisions of the draft Law Enforcement Act, which has passed the first reading in parliament, are in serious conflict with the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia and require correction in the course of further proceedings.
The writer argues that the draft Law Enforcement Act being read in the Riigikogu contains a series of reforms and necessary standards and that the drafting of the act represents an immense amount of work with regard to amassing, cataloguing and codifying Estonia’s experience in this field.
The Estonian Human Development Report 2007, which has become a kind of a yearbook for Estonian social scientists, is the second report published by the Estonian Cooperation Assembly.
For the purposes of regional policy, the local government regional administrative level is generally considered to be a region in the European Union.
The process of developing Estonia´s new integration strategy began in late 2005, and the working version of the strategy entitled “Integration in Estonian society 2008-2013”, which is currently undergoing public discussion, was completed at the beginning of the current year.
As we put into words the national objectives in Estonia´s new integration programme, we would do well to avoid words that touch off major arguments, such as “nation-state” or “multiculturalism”.
Estonian-language instruction occupies a central place in those of the Republic of Estonia´s schools which have Russian as the language of instruction.
The primary risks related to the Estonian economic environment are currently related to strong inflationary pressure, the extensive cooling of the real estate market, and the large current account deficit.
Employers in the private sector do not consider it right that, at state budget negotiations, the Ministry of Finance is presented with a plan for additional hiring of new officials, which it is not planned to fulfil later.
In the final days of April, Estonia fell victim to large-scale, centrally coordinated cyberattacks. The target chosen for the attacks was no less and no more than the entire electronic infrastructure of the state.
Since restoration of independence, Estonia has had five general elections. This article analyzes the results of these elections and compares them to parliamentary elections held by three of Estonia’s closest neighbours – Finland, Sweden and Latvia.
In the very big picture, it is near certain that the success of a country’s economic development is determined by whether the country has a good economic climate. In this context, it is important that the government has a definite plan how to increase the competitiveness of Estonia’s economy. According to the plan, the labour market has to be made more flexible, investment and saving must be promoted, and the creative economy must be developed. It is necessary to ensure equal treatment for business people and fair competition, and to reduce corruption.
The Estonian Development Fund, whose founding was governed by an act passed on 15 November 2006 by the Riigikogu, was in principle created to fulfil two functions: to help the state make long-term strategic decisions – fulfilling the so-called future monitoring function and supporting the financing of innovative, high-risk ideas.
The connections between world view and educational budget can be seen through the point of view of educational ideologies (values) and the educational policy decisions derived from those ideologies; this determines what the relationship between state and citizen is like when it comes to availability of education
Since the restoration of Estonian independence, the study programme for general education schools has been the subject of constant discussion, since the curriculum is one of the most important documents for self-determination of the state and the nation.
The main aim of education is to contribute to the socialization of people in their environment, their form of coexistence – nature, culture and society.
The writer finds that procrastination with a new study programme puts Estonia's teachers in a quandary.
The higher educational strategy, which is currently in legislative proceedings of the Riigikogu sets the higher educational development directions for 2006–2015.
Taking part in the work of the Riigikogu demands increasing professionalism on the part of all deputies, and as a result the work-related organization and legal regulation of the position of member of parliament inevitably require updating.
The wave of strategic planning in Estonia began in the mid to late 1990s and was above all related to the longer term planning of budgetary resources – both domestic and European Union funds.
In election season, today's Estonian political elite sees electoral principles as being driven primarily by the letter of the law.
The first action plan for acceding to the Schengen legal space was drawn up by Estonia in 2001.
In terms of its pro-European attitude, which at times seems unshakeable, Estonia is far ahead of practically all the other EU member states: nowhere else in Europe is support and confidence in the Communities as high it is in Estonia (78%).
So that the Estonian civic society development conception (EKAK) and the implementation plan would not be just a pretty picture adorning the wall, an EKAK support group was founded in February 2004 in the Riigikogu.
As a result of the developments of the last decade, the Estonian state faces a question: will views and tactics from decades ago be enough to cope with the enemies of our society today or do we have to reconsider our attitudes and principles of distribution of resources and come up with more effective weapons in the battle against various social ills?
The Estonian government and the central bank, Eesti Pank, have set the goal of joining the euro zone at the first opportunity—as soon as Estonia fulfils the necessary conditions.
The rapid accession of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with the euro zone has become more and more questionable in the eyes of experts.
Russia's attempts to politicize gas deals in order to improve its foreign policy positions has led to a situation where the European Union no longer muffles its criticism of the behaviour of Moscow.
The question of the environmental influence of the gas pipeline to be constructed between Russia and Germany takes on a special importance due to the vulnerability of the Baltic Sea.
The third Riigikogu White Hall forum, held in early March at the initiative of the Riigikogu's European Union Affairs Committee, was devoted to energy problems, the primary point of departure being the issues raised in the European Commission green book.
There has been little talk lately of the general development and problems of our justice system, which cannot be considered right, since the transition period in the formation of the national judicial system is far from over, but rather has passed into a new, more complicated phase.
There has been little talk lately of the general development and problems of our justice system, which cannot be considered right, since the transition period in the formation of the national judicial system is far from over, but rather has passed into a new, more complicated phase.
One of the main trends of Estonian tax policy in the years ahead is to reduce labour taxes in order to support increased total employment, instead putting more taxes on consumption, use of natural resources, and environmental pollution.
There has been much big talk in Estonia on the topic of ecological tax reform lately.
The Estonian government cannot be accused of lacking a cultural policy. The problem lies above all in the fact that the elitist-conservationist culture policy followed to date does not conform to the needs of a dynamically developing community, which is why the aim of cultural policy is changing.
As of the commissioning of this article, there was a sneaking movement afoot on the home cultural front to bring back commercials to state television and radio.
The Estonian delegation has been consistent in its calls for the Baltic Assembly to be reformed, since we feel it has been too self-absorbed.
In the current complicated international situation, the cooperation of the Baltic States must become more pragmatic and flexible.
Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia are three rapidly developing countries in the Baltic Sea region: partners not connected so much by historical experience but by aims, ambitions and hopes for the future.
Dissatisfaction with the state of education and social welfare in Estonia has reached a critical point.
The Estonian Educational Forum founded in Tartu in 1995 arose out of the need to involve all possible interest groups in the making of major educational policy decisions, or to put it another way, to develop, in the field of educational policy, the participatory democracy that is inherent to civic society.
If we think back on the last fifteen years of educational development, there was never as creative or interesting a period as the beginning of the 1990s, nor will there be again.
The Riigikogu's European Union affairs committee has initiated dialogue with the public at the parliamentary level on future strategies and development scenarios for the Estonian state and society.
In order to implement the principles of the vision of the development of Estonian civic society approved by the Riigikogu in December 2002, a joint commission of representatives of government and civic bodies was convoked in October 2003 at the behest of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
On 13 October the Riigikogu and Pärnu Konverentsid held for the first time a conference on politics entitled "Successes and failures in world politics."
The concept of "hard" and "soft" security are now part of the past, along with the last century. We are realizing that security is a whole and does not only involve ensuring defense forces readiness but also consists of a country's ability to come to grips with the consequences of a natural disaster or an epidemic. To stem violence and chaos, we must expend effort where the threat of failure is greater.
To move in the direction of an information-based economic policy, we will need to act rapidly and decisively, or we will not be sustainable or competitive and Estonia will end up a poor border state of the European Union. What do we need to do and what can we do?
In order to speed up, Estonia's development needs a cluster-based competition strategy founded on long-term strategic plans for technologies and economic clusters that takes into account the development of new high-tech and significant traditional areas such as energy and cultivation.
There is a significant paradigm shift taking place in the global economy. The new socio-economic system is characterized by the terms knowledge-based, innovation-based, networking-based and lifelong-learning-based.
Many writings aspiring to the status of a strategic document have been drafted in Estonia, but unfortunately they do not have internal coherence or the possibility of being implemented.
The essay is a new look at problems described in a previous essay (RiTo 3/2001, 105-109).
Implementing "Sustainable Estonia 21," a strategy for sustainable development commissioned by the Government and formulated as the joint effort of a number of academicians, and business, technology and environmental analysts in 2002-2003, has been delayed by weak political will.
This article introduces ten steps that the Estonian government has planned to raise the competitiveness of the country's economy by furthering research and development activities.
Estonians have achieved renown in Europe as a fairly Euro-skeptical people. Even though the slogan "from one union to another" cannot be taken seriously, it is understandable that the emotions of a nation that has only been free for a dozen or so years cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand.
There is no point in discussing whether joining the EU is good or bad for Estonia, since the question of whether or not to join has been answered. But there is plenty of reason to discuss what Estonia must be like as an EU member.
Due to Estonia's imminent accession to the EU, the role of the head of state is a relevant topic. The government and parliament have been the spotlight when it comes to studying how integration is being coordinated domestically.
As long as not all parties represented in parliament are participating in the process of entering into a social contract under way in Estonia, we can only talk of a social contract initiative, not of a forum that will determine the main direction of travel for Estonian society.
The story of the social contract is the strongest testimony to its necessity. The memorandum of intent signed in 1994 by the people's congress and the statement by social scientists in 2001 about "the two Estonias" took shape with the memorandum of agreement and became "official" with the signing of the first text of the agreement on October 20.
In less than a year all of Estonia's institutions and government offices must adapt to the realities of EU operation. It is clear that merely handling the amount of information coming from Brussels will severely test Estonia's administrative capabilities.
*The article is based on the report “The EU and Democracy in the Nordic Region. European Affairs Committees in Finland, Sweden and Denmark”, October 2002.
I would like to focus here on a development of central importance both for Europe and its partners elsewhere, for which planning has been intricately detailed in some areas, myopically absent in others: the new Europe we shall inhabit beginning the first of May, 2004.
*This article is a thoroughly revised version of the report that was presented for the first time on 11 September 2002 in London at the Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs. I would like to thank the Embassy of Great Britain in Tallinn for their support.
Russia was not able to comprehend the essence of the Schengen Agreement when it raised the dispute about Kaliningrad in 2002. The issue which Russia interpreted as a visa requirement imposed against Russia is actually nothing else but a random side requirement of Europe without internal borders, which the citizens of the European Union support in every way, and it has nothing to do with the problem of Russia.
The article gives an overview of the beginnings and course of European Union entry negotiations, as well as problems and solutions that have emerged during the talks.
With the ratification of the constitution, the Republic of Estonia had taken the first decisive step toward the European legal space. Today, more steps are required to be taken.
The EU entry process to date has shown that a state's executive power's role strengthens upon accession to the union
Compared to previous ones, the contract between Res Publica, Reform Party and the People's Union is undoubtedly a new approach.
If Estonia does not want to remain a haven for cheap subcontracted labor, now is the time to start moving from a minimalist, conservation-minded state toward an innovative state that invests in its people's future.
Cooperation between partners with diverse interests is only possible when a common ground is found and agreement is able to be reached on the principles. This means a coalition agreement is essential, though it is a separate matter how detailed a given agreement should be in terms of concrete policies.
Estonia is used to coalition agreements being the programmatic basic documents of the mutual agreements between the political forces in the governing coalition.
The constitution has worked well since 1992. It has effectively fulfilled the role of foundation of a democratic society.
From the standpoint of the relationship between legislature and government, Estonia is overwhelmingly a parliamentary state, inhabiting the same family of nations as Germany, Austria, Italy, Ireland and several Central European countries as well as all of Europe's monarchies.
In making a constitution-centered analysis of the last ten years, the writer highlights one of the most important of the many functions of the constitution - that of stabilizer. The constitution does just that, defining the relationship between the community and the state and setting forth the values that unite a society.
The writer presents an overview of the development of the Riigikogu rules of order over more than ten years. He is of the opinion that over time, the law on rules of order has become increasingly longer and more confusing. A printout of its 168 articles spans 53 pages. The structure of the law is completely hopeless. Presumably only the Riigikogu speakers' assistants can remember what part lies where. To use the law, each case has to be viewed in terms of different far-flung sections of the law.
Analyzing the Riigikogu's law on the rules of order from a technical and logistical aspect (structure, optimization of regulations) and standard practice as it has evolved based on the law - all compared to mechanisms used in other European legislatures - inevitably summons thoughts of how to change the law.
In the Soviet local council elections, people voted for pre-approved candidates in one-seat districts. The ratification of a declaration of restoration of independence in 1988 allowed a direction to be taken toward renewing local governments.
The present local government funding system is becoming obsolete. The great differences in income levels and the inexorable growth of the tax-free minimum make rapid and cardinal reform of the system necessary.
The aim of the article is to survey the changes over the last few decades in Estonia's regional economic development and future trends in the wider context of industrialised Western democracies. The article details the main factors that influenced Estonia's regional development and outlines the potential development of the first part of this century.
Despite the fact that a long-term state fuel and energy plan was approved by parliament six years ago, Estonia's energy sector still moves forward amid ambiguities and contradictions. The old plan has simply left too many questions unanswered. Today, Estonia needs a new and more comprehensive and concrete energy plan.
In talking about Estonian energy's potential for development, many people from different walks of life have made pronouncements in the media on what is right and what is wrong. But often the actual goal of these edifying words is lost, as is the picture of reality.
Since the creation of the EU, the central topic of European integration has been expanding and deepening it. Deepening embraces expanding spheres of cooperation as well as increasing cooperation and placing it in under joint state-wide (supranational) control.
The objective of the present article is to evaluate the economic aspects of the European Union future prospects in the context of eastward EU enlargement, based on the theoretical concept of integration.
The objective of the European Convention was to work out recommendations on the future shape of the EU.
This article gives an overview of the issues related to party financing.
Regulation of party financing has been a topic for discussions in Estonia for almost the whole period since independence was restored. There has been one direction to pursue: namely, to separate the activity of the parties and the parliament from the financial interests of semi-anonymous donors, and to increase the proportion of state budgetary finances in the political process.
Despite some interesting precedents in 1996, the 2001 presidential elections were undoubtedly much more innovative. Indeed, these elections provided a great deal of experience and created a number of precedents, both for society as a whole and the President as an institution, and both in terms of the election campaign and for the parties.
This time the presidential elections turned out to be clearly party-based. This may be considered as an indication of maturity of the Estonian political landscape and of the strength of the political parties.
As a result of comprehensive reform, the interests of the patient must become better protected and the queues for health care must become shorter. Doctors and nurses should have an opportunity to earn more money, and what is perhaps particularly important from the state's point of view, public health money should be used reasonably, not spent in a pork-barrel manner.
The public health project has crept past the real issue of health and couched itself in medical care issues alone. In order to rearrange the system, we have to take inventory. We do not know what actual demand is for medical aid.
In a short time, Estonia has become one of the countries, where the Internet is used on a daily basis by a rapidly increasing number of customers, comparable to that of mass media (see Table 1).
The relations between the Parliament and the people go through the playing field of the media. It is important for democracy that information would be forwarded in both directions ungarbled, or that the receiver of the information would have, at least, the possibility of checking what message was sent out and what was added or cut out by the mediator who forwarded it. It is also important that everybody would be respected and nobody, discriminated against. Only democracy needs truth, and only free press stands in the service of truth, while nobody has a monopoly on truth.
In modern society, public research and development activities provide a development basis, which creates prerequisites for promoting spiritual values, improving the quality of life and enhancing economic competitiveness.
The paper deals with issues of Estonian science policy against the background of the European Research Area, but it also stresses that more attention should be paid to social sciences and other sciences focussing on Estonia.
Several research workers and other people have maintained that in previous years the achievements of our scientists who received a scientific degree were widely known; successful research workers were also praised as a national treasure. In the past decade, scientific research became like pottering about in private. Society does not know what researchers are doing, let alone that scientists would have their say in the preparation of decisions which are of importance to the state, although science is financed mainly by the state budget in Estonia.
Knowledge-based and science-centred society is becoming another slogan enabling us to justify any decisions made in science policy. We should be aware and informed of all major scientific advances in the world, but at the same time Estonia is so small that we need to ask precise questions about what kind of science we should be developing with our limited resources. Unfortunately, posing this simple question and working out a strategy for the development of science was postponed since 1990 (when the Research and Development Council (RDC) was founded) until this year, when the project of the Estonian Research and Development Strategy reached the Riigikogu.
Globalisation, as a worldwide integration of money, trade and labour markets, influences the open economy of small Estonia more than many other countries. This process is associated with several dangers, but also with interesting challenges and opportunities. Despite the dangers, it is not necessary - and generally not possible either - to fight it, although the state must monitor the processes involved and interfere by means of economic policy when necessary, in order to prevent negative consequences and make use of positive opportunities.
The objective of the economic policy is to specify the means by which maximum profitability can be achieved with limited resources.
Due to a low population density and centuries-long European-style agricultural and forestry practices, Estonia possesses good agricultural and forestry resources. In contrast to forestry resources, Estonian agricultural potential has not found adequate economic use.
Estonia is currently in a position where a significant proportion of housing comes in the form of apartment buildings that are totally outdated. The period in history when such housing was built has not changed people's attitudes regarding preferred types of accommodation.
Four Estonian towns were active members of the Hanseatic League, a medieval trade partnership. This may explain why the idea of pan-European co-operation, put forward in 1923 by Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, received extremely enthusiastic reception in Estonia, which in the 1920s was enjoying its newly-found independence.
Membership in the European Union should not be an aim in itself, nor a substitute for imaginary security guarantees. The EU is predominantly an economic partnership that is dominated by large industrially developed countries and multinational capital with its cross-border capital flows. This creates the need for small countries to position themselves in this partnership and in the international division of labour, balancing their economic interests with projections on domestic developments.
This comment distinguishes between two ideal types of democratic thinking – majoritarian and consensus democracy – on the basis of Arend Lijphart Patterns of Democracy (1999).
The present article discusses the parliamentary culture in the Republic of Estonia in the 1920s-1930s as compared with the parliamentary culture of the 1990s after the regaining of independence.
The article seconds the essay by Prof. Taagepera by stating that a high level of democracy and parliamentary culture is based upon the general political awareness and traditions of the whole nation.
In order to raise administrative capacity and implement the principles of modern public administration, a “tiger leap” is needed that would be qualitatively different from the “natural” development that has occurred until now. Thus, the changes initiated by the coalition agreement to improve the functioning of public administration, can be called an all-round comprehensive reform.
The author considers administrative reform in Estonia to be a necessity. Ten years of regained independence is sufficient to start improving the present administrative organisation where it is needed and retain what has proven useful in practice.
Administrative reform affects every citizen and therefore it has to be accepted by the majority of the political parties represented in the Riigikogu.
The article recognises drug consumption as having become a serious social problem in Estonia. The author tries to present an alternative view to a slowly proliferating opinion that Estonian youth in the 21st century cannot any longer live without drugs as drugs are seen as having become an obligatory component in the search for enjoyment.
The current Estonian drug policy is based on the “Alcoholism and drug prevention programme for 1997-2007” approved by the Government in 1997. The prevention of drug-abuse and combating of drug-related crime is one of the priorities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The drug problem is a relatively new phenomenon in Estonia although already in 1930 the Republic of Estonia as a member of the League of Nations had acceded to the opium convention and passed a law on import, export and sale of opium and other narcotic substances and preparations.
The present government is unable to understand the real significance of privatising the Narva Power Plants and the expected consequences for the Estonian economy. Allowing all strategic infrastructure enterprises in Estonia to fall under foreign control would in essence mean giving up Estonian independence and sovereignty.
The Government of the Republic authorised Prime Minister Mart Laar and the Minister of Economic Affairs Mihkel Pärnoja to present to the Riigikogu the conditions and background of the contract with NRG Generating Holdings B.V., which is a hundred per cent affiliate of NRG Energy Inc., to acquire a 49 per cent interest in the Narva Power Plants PLC.
On 28 August, the discussion of the issue of national importance continued that had been suspended after Prime Minister Mart Laar had made his speech and answered questions.
The present article explores the reasons, prerequisites, conditions and the expected results of the sale of minority interest in the Narva Power Plants PLC.
The question whether our laws are understandable was already raised by the VIII Riigikogu, and it still remains topical.
The authors agree with the view of Ms Maret Maripuu, Member of the Riigikogu, that in a democratic country laws cannot be written in a way that only professional lawyers would understand them. However, law should not be understood as a command.
The aim of this article was to determine which variables and to what extent influence people’s trust towards national parliaments. I concentrated on parliament, as it is perceived as a central political institution, a cornerstone and a symbol of democracy. Thus, attitudes towards parliament should indicate the general legitimacy of the political system.
*Peer reviewed research paper.
The goal of the article is to analyze and assess the impact of amalgamations on the financial sustainability of municipalities in Estonia. The article consists of three sections. The first section provides an overview of the discussion in scientific literature, the second section examines the experience of amalgamating municipalities in Estonia and the final section is devoted to a comprehensive empirical analysis and discussion of the impact of amalgamation on the financial sustainability of municipalities based on the financial indicators of Estonian municipalities before and after the amalgamations.
The audits conducted in the local governments by the National Audit Office give a good overview of the main problems of the local governments and enable to generalise the problems of the sustainability of the local government organisation in Estonia.
The article examines the electoral participation and performance of independent candidates in national and European elections in EU-27. Independent candidates continue to receive a marginal number of votes in the vast majority of elections in which they compete.
It is not unusual for the ruling parties to be unsuccessful at the European Parliament elections, and not to be able to repeat the success achieved at the elections to the national parliament.
Parents have equal rights and obligations regarding their children, unless otherwise provided by law. The most important part of the legal relationship between a parent and a child is the custody right of the parent. The parent’s right of custody means that a parent has the obligation and the right to take care of his or her underage child. The right of custody may be granted to a parent or not granted to a parent, and the right of custody may also be granted to a parent only partially. A thorough revision of the ownership of custody rights may turn out to be inevitable first of all in the cases when the parents start to live separately and it becomes necessary to decide to what extent and in what way both parents will participate in the life of their child. It is generally thought that it is usually in the best interests of the child whose parents are living separately to have two parents with custody rights after the breakup of the marriage or the cohabitation relationship of its parents.
The aim of this article is to give an overview of the main trends in public trust towards the national parliament in Estonia in the years 1995–2012, to explain these trends and to analyze the distribution of trust towards parliament between different groups based on socio-demographic position and political views.
The analysis looks at how the balance in legislative activity between the parliament and the government has changed in Estonia over the last 20 years.
Results of the analysis of court practice show that a great number of disputes on providing of health care services never get to court. According to the EU health portal, it is estimated that 8–12% of hospitalized patients suffer in the course of treatment because of deviations in health care services.
The article is based on the court practice analysis entitled “High court fee as an impediment to access to justice”, conducted by the Legal Information Department of the Supreme Court.
*The article is based on the analysis conducted in the Riigikogu in May 2011. Read more at: Vutt, M., Lillsaar, M., Rohtmets, E. Kõrge riigilõiv kui õigusemõistmisele juurdepääsu takistus. Kohtupraktika analüüs (High State Fees as an Obstacle to the Access to Justice. Analysis of Case Law). Tartu, 9 May 2011 – http://www.riigikohus.ee/vfs/1121/RiigiLoivud.pdf.
The article is inspired by the Supreme Court decision of 16 March 2010 concerning the supplementary state budget of 2009 (available in English: http://www.nc.ee/?id=1122).
At the referendum in Turkey on 12 September 2010, nearly 58 per cent of Turkish citizens who voted approved the constitutional amendments package which will modernise the Constitution of Turkey.
The article discusses execution of court decisions of the Constitutional Review Chamber of the Supreme Court and their impact on the legislator and courts, on the basis of the Constitutional Review Chamber of the Supreme Court decisions from 2004 until 2009.
This article provides a short overview of some of the problems that have arisen in applying punishment in practice.
Analysis of judicial practice pertaining to county governor’s supervision revealed that the judicial branch ascribes a divergent legal effect to supervision decisions made by county governors on the basis of Subsection 85 (4) of the Government of the Republic Act constituting a proposal to bring an administrative act into conformity with legislation.
The article presents generalizations from an analysis of judicial practice entitled “The Requirement of Compensating Damage on the Basis of the State Liability Act”, conducted by the Supreme Court’s Legal Information Service.
The Lisbon Agreement signed in Lisbon on 13 December 2007 does not represent a new Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe – at least not in the formal sense. This agreement only changes, and does not supersede, the current European basic agreements, but on the other hand, the changes are in essence similar to those which would have resulted if the European Constitution had entered into force.
The model of the Estonian Chancellor of Justice is unique. No other country combines the function of constitutional supervision and ombudsman.
Already in the process of drafting the first constitution of the Republic of Estonia in the Constituent Assembly´s constitutional committee, aspects related to supervision of constitutionality were discussed at length.
When diplomats are exhausted by the endless negotiations in the UN and reach their wit’s end, it is a good time to remind ourselves that a roomful of exhausted diplomats is still far better than tens of thousands of soldiers on the front lines.
The Darfur humanitarian disaster has cast a shadow on the beginning of the 21st century and third millennium. If there is goodwill, it could be resolved overnight; or it could drag on for decades as the case has been with the civil war in southern Sudan.
How is the European Union enlargement reflected in the work of the Court of Justice of the European Communities?
*The opinions expressed in this article reflect the personal views of the authors and do not present the official positions of the European Court.
In only over two and a half years, Estonia has had to get used to the fact that it is not only in the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg but also of the European Court of Justice, the judiciary institution of European Union.
The Council of the European Union is the primary decision-maker of the communities, and includes ministers from all member states. Step by step, the European Union is becoming a stronger player on the world stage in the author's field of expertise—the foreign policy of the Council. In this work, Estonia pays much attention to European Union policy toward neighbouring countries.
The article analyses the functioning of the Council of the European Union after the latest enlargement. It looks both at the Estonian domestic shaping of positions and the working of the institution at the EU level.
Discussions over the future of Europe have been in a central position in sessions of the European Commission this year. For its part, the Commission is satisfied with its proposals to reduce the amount of legislation and regulation of European life from Brussels.
Estonia is only beginning to learn to sense the currents of power in the European institutions, which is quite complicated, as even the European Commission alone has many ostensibly contradictory dimensions.
Just as the European Union is not a union, neither is the European Parliament the pan-European equivalent of, or substitute for, national assemblies.
For a newcomer from the Estonian Riigikogu, the working arrangement of the European Parliament, which allows continuous communications with various political groups, is quite striking.
This article, the empirical part of which draws on surveys conducted among members and local government officials in five Central and Eastern European countries, introduces role patterns in relations between the legislative and executive power on a local level, as well as particular implications for relations between authorities and citizens.
Every year there are disputes between the government and local municipalities over money to be allocated from the state budget.
The Auditor General cannot be given compulsory audit duties. In putting together the annual working plan, the Auditor General is guided by its strategy and its constitutional responsibility to submit an overview every year to parliament on how state assets were used and managed the previous year.
Central banks are involved in monetary policy on a daily basis, regulating the demand and supply of money and maintaining reserves. Thus legislation places the main responsibility for successful monetary policy on the shoulders of the Bank of Estonia.
Estonia would like to be one of the first new members of the club - we would like to become a member of the euro area at the earliest possible moment. That would mean joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM2) as soon as possible, with the present EUR/EEK exchange rate and the currency board arrangement in place.
*The article is based on a presentation given at an international conference on September 30 in Tallinn.
Despite the frequent changes of governing coalition, Estonia is considered the most successful transitional state in Eastern Europe.
The whole world faces the need to reappraise its convictions in the field of economy, foreign policy, national defense, demographics and many other areas. The Prime Minister proposes entrusting the Riigikogu to supervise the State Audit Office, which should be transformed into a body controlling the actions of the government. A review board should be selected from MPs; it would appoint an official who would serve as chief inspector.
Nearly all parties have announced their intention to see the constitution in future contain a principle according to which the president would be popularly and directly elected. This consensus entails but one question: if all parties stand behind their promises with such solidarity, something must be rotten. Ask yourselves whether Estonia really needs a president at all.
The article discusses some of the problems that have arisen regarding the constitution.
Estonia's constitution will mark its 10-year anniversary in the summer of 2002.
The fact that Estonia's possible accession to the EU will be accompanied by changes in the foundations of our statehood is now widely accepted. Leaving the constitution unamended is not considered a possibility by either the pro-Europe camp or the Euroskeptics.
From the activities of the Legal Chancellor so far, it can be inferred that there is a need for more comprehensive analysis of the problems that have become evident, both from the requests and proposals presented to him, and as a result of an audit performed on the Legal Chancellor's own initiative. There is also a need for development of proposals for more effective protection of individual rights.
It was more than 200 years ago that the spiritual fathers of the Constitution of the United States of America Adams, Hamilton, etc. understood that judicial independence is a part of a much wider principle of separation of powers. Judicial administration must guarantee judicial independence.
With the adoption of the Government of the Republic Act in 1995, the Ministry of Justice was given the responsibility to administer the activities of courts of the first and second instance and to organise legal assistance.
The unresolved legal limbo in the administration of courts is seriously threatening the development of the Estonian court administration system. The existing model of court administration does not have sufficient potential for increasing the efficiency of the overall system. The role of court administration tends to be regarded very narrowly as being limited to the supervision of the professional activities of judges and the financing of courts. This interpretation of the role of court administration is clearly inadequate and devalues its real role.
In his presentation in the Riigikogu on 22 September 1999 Auditor General Juhan Parts dealt with four topics.
Estonia’s ambitious plan to renovate buildings to be more energy efficient could have a significant effect because buildings account for the largest share of the final energy consumption (approx. 50%), including households with 22%.
Introduction of the universal service into the Estonian electricity market in autumn 2022 led to a dramatic reduction in the price of electricity for many households which had previously kept an eye on stock market prices.
The purpose of this research is to shed light on how family policy affects the gender wage gap in Estonia.
The scarcity of new teachers entering the profession, as well as the shortage of supportive specialists which further exacerbates this, has set the Estonian schools a drastic challenge.
An increasingly person-centred and needs-based approach is expected in long-term care sector, which will also require more staff. In the future, the demand for workers providing long-term care services will grow, but the sector has an unattractive reputation, low wages and poor working conditions. Besides that, stress and high workloads make it difficult to keep people in the sector, as people with the necessary skills are not prepared to work under the existing conditions.
The growing influence of the People’s Republic of China in the world over the past decades and its aspiration to become a global leader are increasingly prompting Western countries to ask questions about the growing threats and potential threats from China.
The survey results show that the theoretical financial literacy of Estonians did not improve between 2019 and the previous survey in 2015. However, over the nine years that this survey has been conducted, there has been an improvement in comprehending the nature of investment risk and in the interest rates calculation skills.
Opportunities for people of Estonia to move internationally for work or study purposes have increased significantly over the past few decades, affecting the migration behaviour of the younger generation in particular.
* Peer-reviewed article. The research was funded by the Postimees Foundation under the Young Estonia POST23 and POST214 research grants.
The purpose of the research into depopulation patterns was to determine which settlements and building types in Estonia were experiencing depopulation, based on data from power consumption and the Population Register.
The authors have studied the analyses published so far in international research literature as well as the Estonian research data to present the key conclusions on the success achieved in responding to the three-year long COVID-19 pandemic as well as the possible lessons to be learned in preparation of potential future pandemics.
In 2020–2021, the Department of Semiotics and the Institute of Social Studies of the University of Tartu conducted a research project with the aim of developing a prototype for the interactive web-based learning platform “Learn to Recognise Manipulation” (https://mojutustehnikad.ee) in order to improve the identification of information influence activities.
The intensification of agricultural land use that took place during the last century has led to an extensive decline in biodiversity.
The direct impact of the biotechnology applications already visible today could amount to 2–4 trillion euro (c. 5% of the global GDP) in the coming 10–20 years, according to the estimation of McKinsey.
Specialist literature qualifies the forms and quality of activities that are needed and appropriate for young people with terms like youth-friendly, youth-focused, youth-centered, and youth-responsive. Yet the concept of “youth-centeredness” or “youth-centered approach” has not been conceptualised unambiguously in the context of services or activities offered to young people. And although youth-centered approach has not been clearly defined in research literature, young people are treated as fully formed individuals with rights and active agency in shaping their lives.
* Peer-reviewed article.
Estonia’s tax system was established in 1994. Its salient features are simplicity and emphasis on economic growth, and it includes few exceptions. In 2019, the general tax burden in Estonia was 33.1% of the GDP (EUR 9.4 billion). Compared to countries around the world, our tax burden places us in the upper quarter; however, in the European context, we are in the lower quarter.
Long-term care covers various social and health care services. According to a recent survey, there are 160,900–190,500 people living in Estonia who use outside help to cope in their daily lives.
In Estonia, innovation of democratic procedures has so far focused on deliberative institutions (e.g. people’s assembly, opinion festival) and digital means (online voting, VOLIS as a System for Local Democracy Procedures).
Referendum can be viewed as one of the key instruments of contemporary direct democracy, which allows people to directly apply their legislative power.
The article provides a survey of the impact of the main measures of family policy on the birth rate. The article summarises the experiences of other developed countries and scientific publications on this topic and also gives an overview of the research conducted in Estonia in this field.
The subsidies allocated to non-governmental organizations have increased and the arrangements for allocation has been specified, but the support measures can be made even more effective.
Nearly ten years ago, Estonia’s first government task force began its work on the initiative of the Government Office.
*Peer-reviewed article.
Health care is funded from a variety of taxes, and cost-sharing contributions from the beneficiaries themselves. Taxes and cost-sharing contributions have different impacts on individual incomes and opportunities for consumption. This analysis calculates the cumulative result of the inequality that is inherent in health care financing.
* Peer-reviewed article.
This article analyses the effects of the European Union Cohesion Policy Structural Funds on the performance of Estonian companies in terms of productivity, job creation, and exports. In the period of 2014–2020, a total of EUR 4.4. billion was granted to Estonia, which was the highest support allocation per capita in Europe; a significant share of that support was granted to activities that promoted the growth and competitiveness of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
The article gives an overview of the security trends and national activity measures of the Baltic states. The paper is based on the analysis “A comparison of the Baltic security policy documents” that the author carried out in the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences.
The article looks at the five point grading scale used in the Estonian general education system, tracing its history from its introduction in the first half of the 19th century until today.
A corner stone in protecting victims of intimate partner violence and controlling violent acts in intimate relationships is the attitude of the population and of the appliers of law.
The article discusses whether the recently proposed initiatives in the European Union to enhance defence cooperation could strengthen European security, and why these have failed to garner widespread support in Estonia.
With the constant increase of data flows there is a demand for better infrastructure to facilitate the growth of the digital sector. Arctic Connect, a Finnish plan to link Europe and Asia through a submarine communication cable along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), promises to deliver faster and more reliable internet connections between Europe, Russia and Asia due to shorter distances and fewer disruptions caused by human activity along the Northern Sea Route.
* Peer reviewed article
** Policy brief presented at the conference „Beyond Huawei: Europe’s adoption of PRC technology and its implications“, Prague, 27 November 2019. Sinopsis. China in content and Perspective. 7.03.2020. https://sinopsis.cz/en/arctic-digital-silk-road/
Despite the best efforts, legal acts and legal provisions tend to cumulate in legislative drafting in Estonia, and the overall transparency of the legal order often suffers.
* Peer reviewed article
The results of the extensive study assessing the situation of the Estonian civil society, conducted in the cooperation of Tallinn University, the Institute of Baltic Studies and the market research company Turu-uuringute AS in spring 2019, show that the cooperation between nonprofit organisations (NPOs) is on a downward trend.
In comparison with other European countries, the Estonian pension system is characterised by a relatively low level of pensions, both as regards the level of basic minimum protection and replacement of previous earnings.
Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) form an important part of the oversight system, holding governments accountable for the use of public funds.
No one needs much convincing today in the value of public transport, and its existence is important in several aspects. However, while the trendy topic is whether public transport should be a free or a paid service, a lot of people (particularly in rural areas) are much more interested in having any sort of public transport services in their place of residence at all.
The article discusses the social isolation of Estonian men aged 60+ and their participation in community life which has been studied relatively little so far.
While the GDPR is generally efficient and necessary in its vigorous protection of the fundamental rights of self‑determination and identity of the European citizens, the article identifies a core issue that has gone unnoticed: the GDPR violates the EU treaties.It is basically a ‘European law’, yet European laws are banned under the TEU and the TFEU.
* Peer-reviewed article.
The Foresight Centre at the Parliament of Estonia is working on a scenario-project on the future of work. Four alternative development paths were developed for the Estonian labour market under the heading Tööturg 2035 (‘Labour market 2035’).
Throughout the ages, working has undergone great changes that have depended on the overall development of population and technology, as well as the economy and society. In modern welfare societies, the social protection system has taken shape alongside with the transformation of working.
Population censuses are the oldest statistics activities in human history. Their history goes back thousands of years. Researchers laid down the rules for modern population censuses at an international conference of statisticians more than 150 years ago. However, by now, these rules and frameworks have proved too narrow for the demographic development: it has become considerably more difficult to question people, because people value their privacy and do not wish to disclose their data.
This analysis discusses the challenges of NATO deterrence from the point of view of the Baltic States.
The Estonian government is setting its legal policy goals until the year 2030. There is a good case for including more systematic and effective procedures for preventing and combating domestic violence among these goals.
In recent years, regulatory and practical steps have been taken to increase the number of women serving in the Defence Forces.
* Peer-reviewed article.
In developed countries, productivity growth to a considerable extent depends on the export capabilities and investment patterns of companies.
Sustainable growth in the European transitional economies is based on the international competitiveness of companies and their position in the global value chain.
Using of the business ecosystem concept has grown drastically during the last five years. This concept describes the interaction between companies mutually and with other key actors of business on the basis of central attraction. Different approaches to business ecosystem focus on the creation of new companies and establishing suitable environment for them. The best-known example of business ecosystems is Silicon Valley (USA).
* Peer-reviewed article.
Changing and developing economy has influenced the way people use their knowledge and skills and earn their living. In longer perspective, this has meant the shift of labour force first into industry, and after that, into service. How has the labour market of Estonia developed after liberation from the Soviet Union?
The article discusses the assessment of the competitiveness of regions, and the simplified methods for performing this activity.
In the opinion of the National Audit Office, the centralisation of support services of state agencies has generally been successful, the quality of accounting has improved, and accounting has become more effective.
Today’s world is becoming increasingly computerised. Estonia is well-known as a country where the citizens’ communication with the state has been digitalised and many services have been taken online.
* Peer-reviewed article.
This article is the first analysis that quantitatively studies the adaptation of newly arrived immigrants in Estonia. The attitudes of newly arrived immigrants in regard to several issues relating to the life and society of Estonia are analysed, using the data of a large-scale study conducted among the newly arrived immigrants in spring 2017 as source material. 2850 respondents participated in the study conducted within the framework of the Estonian integration monitoring. A majority of them were the foreigners – citizens of the European Union and third country nationals – who had arrived in Estonia in 2012–2016.
The importance of the topic is related to counter-radicalization activity, and its effectiveness proven through scientific theories and practice. This topic is relatively new in Estonia and is lacking academic research so far.
Over the last 20 years, the European Union has been associated with the export of certain universal norms, rules and practices to other countries. In academic circles, this concept is called the „normative power Europe“. Democracy, rule of law, strong commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms, and social justice – these principles form the core of the identity of the European Union. Based on shared political, economic and cultural ties among the Member States, the EU has also sought to promote these norms in the neighbouring countries, including Russia. However, the outbreak of a violent conflict between Russia and Ukraine at the end of 2013 clearly demonstrates that the EU has failed in its pursuits in Russia despite the extensive mutual relations and comprehensive financial support provided by the EU. As the EU has generally failed in bringing Russia over to embracing and upholding the European values, this raises the question of the authority of the EU as a normative power. Against this backdrop, the aim of the article is to analyse how consistent the EU has been in defending and promoting European values and norms in the international arena during the Ukrainian conflict. The topic is of particular importance for the EU Member States that are potentially targeted or indirectly influenced by Russia’s actions.
Estonian electoral system seems to be very stable when looking at the volatility of parliamentary elections. However, the individual voting behaviour indicates a different situation. The process behind the discrete vote in the parliamentary elections is far more complicated because voters differ in the level of political availability. Some voters are strong supporters of one specific political party and other parties probably do not have a chance to change their preferences. Other voters are more flexible in that matter and they are open to giving their vote to different parties at different elections. The latter is the main focus group for electoral competition because there is indeed a higher probability that they would change their voting preference.
* Peer-reviewed article.
The administrative-territorial reform of 2017 was the most thorough one ever in the history of the Republic of Estonia. The number of local municipalities decreased by nearly three times – from 213 to 79. As a result of that, 50 new local municipalities were formed which consisted of at least two, and in the most extreme case, seven, old local municipalities. Elections in the neighbouring countries of Estonia – specifically in Finland and Latvia – have shown that voter turnout tends to fall in merged local municipalities. In the debates before the elections, that was thought to happen in Estonia, too – the reason being the potential disappointment of the electorate when the state clearly prefers quantitative indicators when organising the administrative-territorial reform. In the Government’s opinion, a rural municipality or city with at least 5000 residents is a viable local municipality.
Young people running as candidates in (local) elections should be recognized and acknowledged as: an important type of political participation; a transition from a (largely) passive voter and bystander into an active participant in politics; an activity that is good in itself irrespective of its consequences and successes. Young candidates in elections are as important as young voters.
As a result of the administrative reform, in 2018, the number of local municipalities will decrease and bigger municipalities will presumably be better prepared to perform their functions. However, the municipalities will still need help with real estate maintenance in the future. The local municipalities own too many buildings and the floor plans of the buildings are inadequate. Over a half of these buildings are in a bad condition due to age and poor maintenance. In the new situation, the leaders of local municipalities have to decide which property is really needed by the locals and how to provide services as optimally as possible, so that the maintenance of superfluous and costly real estate wouldn’t become an objective in and of itself.
The present article analyses gender gaps in education in Estonia based on research papers and proposes several ways for dealing with it.
This article discusses the impact of social cleavages on the party system and its formation in the Baltic States, including Estonia. Dealing with social cleavages is the main issue in the sociological approach to party systems.
The objective of this analysis is to investigate research and development (R&D) and human capital as drivers of productivity growth in European regions. Productivity levels across countries and regions vary to a large degree and the discrepancies tend to persist over time. Moreover, differences in productivity account for a major part of per capita income disparities. Despite extensive economic and policy measures, substantial productivity gaps are still prevalent in the European Union (EU). The crucial challenge for researchers and policy-makers is to understand the causes of productivity gaps and to determine ways to escape low productivity.
In 2008, the Government of the Republic adopted the National Health Plan 2009–2020 (NHP), which has become the key document on health policy, integrating independent strategies for different fields. In 2016, the performance of the NHP was reviewed.
Sweden is well-known for its negotiations-focused political culture, but recent media coverage of the country often focuses on riots and disruptive protests. Does this mean that the country has changed? What are the political consequences of all these protests? This article uses data of the Swedish Protest Database and describes protest trends in Sweden during the last three decades. It also describes the consequences of one specific type of protest events – protests against school closures in Swedish municipalities.
Two main layers can be clearly defined in the participation of citizens in the public politics of Estonia. In the 1990s, the citizens’ initiatives in Estonia were structured by the post-colonial context that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. The main source of motivation was the division of a significant part of the society into “winners” and “losers” as a result of the restoration of the nation state, and the property reform.
Involving the public sector in the performance of public sector functions is a widespread practice. For example, in Estonia, there have been attempts to make use of the efficiency of the private sector in the collection of outstanding public claims (taxes, fines, environmental charges, claims arising from court judgments, penalty payments and interests). Generally, arrears are collected in enforcement procedure by bailiffs who are freelance as of 2001 and finance their activities from the fees collected from debtors.
The effectiveness and development of a university, but also an academic worker himself or herself depend on the interpretation of their role. The research conducted among the lecturers of the Estonian universities gave interesting results, on the basis of which the following recommendations can be given.
* The article is based on a study conducted at the University of Tartu: Vadi, M., Reino, A., Aidla, A. (2014). Student and Lecturer: Role Concept View. Data gathered with the support of Archimedes Foundation Primus Programme, financed by the European Social Fund.
The article gives an overview of the death culture of hunter-gatherers in Estonia in 6500–2600 BC. Combining the methods of archaeology, archaeothanatology and osteology, the archaeological burial sites that had been excavated decades ago were analysed. Unlike earlier analyses, the research focused on the dead body or its material remains (here: whole skeletons and separate human bones). Detailed archaethanatological description of them enables to reconstruct what the burial practices were like thousands of years ago. The primary identities of the dead were ascertained with the help of osteology and isotope studies of nutrition.
The legal policy has been a relatively unexplored field in the sociology of law studies.
Spring 2017 will mark three years since the international community imposed sanctions against Russia because of the conflict in Ukraine, in the hopes of ushering in a solution to the conflict. However, the conflict in Ukraine has persevered against all expectations, and the Cold War-like opposition between the West and Russia has deepened.
According to a number of studies, the availability of childcare places is an important factor that influences birth rate, employment and family planning.
In the context of the Estonian work capacity reform, we have seen a discussion on the need to establish an insurance system for work accidents and occupational diseases, with a view to motivate employers to improve the working environment.
This article is a contribution to the discussions pertaining to the Estonian administrative reform, analysing the issue from the urban planning point of view and making proposals as to how the administrative borders could be changed in urban sprawls. Based on the development of the urban region of Tartu in the context of theoretical urban models, discussed in depth in a Master’s thesis by Kertu Anni, the authors try to point out if and to what extent the general principles of urban planning should be taken into account when changing the administrative borders in urban regions in the course of the implementation of the administrative reform. We also discuss the reasonability of taking whole administrative units as “units” in the “merging and dividing”, and what the alternatives are. On the example of the urban region of Tartu, a more detailed insight is provided into what directions and to what extent the development of the city could go in the perspective of the next 30 years, and a theoretically suitable border solution. As a result, the authors identify the “third stage” (the first was the leasing of the manorial lands surrounding the city, and the second was the transfer thereof to the city) mechanism of extending the city lands in the more general context of Estonia.
* Peer-reviewed article.
The Praxis Centre for Policy Studies conducted a study in Estonian companies to establish the existence of data that describe diversity, to describe the diversity in the management boards of Estonian companies, and to evaluate the links between diversity and economic performance.
* Praxis study “Diversity in Estonian Enterprises” was a part of the Law School of Tallinn University of Technology project of promoting equal treatment.
In 2011–2014, a study of the role of regional higher education institutions in local development was conducted within the framework of research and innovation policy monitoring programme TIPS. The head of the work group was Garri Raagmaa, Associate Professor of the University of Tartu. The report analysed what role of the units of public universities that are located outside Tallinn and Tartu have in regional development, and gave recommendations on enhancing the regional innovation system and making better use of the potential of universities.
* Peer-reviewed article.
Women’s representation in the Riigikogu is low, flating at around 20%. Theoretically proven critical mass of women, which is also recommended by the United Nations, is 30%.
Skype Estonia together with the Faculty of Economics of the University of Tartu explored women’s role and potential in Estonia’s information and communication technology (ICT) sector.
In the nearest future, the ageing of population will make the policy shapers face the question: will the housing used by the aged correspond to their possibilities and needs in the future? If not, then should everyone solve their problem individually, or is it necessary to formulate a national housing policy supporting smart choices?
The article discusses the main models of curriculum and the outlets for training in general and higher education in Estonia and the EU.
During the last two decades, several important reforms have been carried out in the Estonian pension system.
*Peer-reviewed article
**This article is a shortened Estonian version of an article in English: Võrk, A., Piirits, M., Jõgi, E. (2015). “The Impact of Introduction of Funded Pension Schemes on Intragenerational Inequality in Estonia: a Cohort Microsimulation Analysis”. Longer Estonian version can be read in the blog of Praxis Center for Policy Studies (http://mottehommik.praxis.ee/). The English version of the article is connected with the MOPACT (Mobilising Potential Active Aging) project, which was fianced from
Estonia has set itself the objective to achieve 80 percent of the average level of productivity of the EU by 2020. Although the increase of the productivity of Estonian labour force has been faster than the average in Europe, in recent years the growth rate has slowed down signifiantly and the achieving of this objective has become unlikely.
Collaboration between universities and businesses includes a variety of challenges, and one of these is internship. Internship involves a two-way knowledge exchange process whereby knowledge moves from one organisation to another and feedback is given constantly.
The development of society and technology creates new jobs and the need for specialists with new kind of competences. It means that the outdated, lecture-based traditional teaching methods that rely on theoretical models are not suitable for acquiring the competences that will be needed in the future.
The article discusses the context, underlying frameworks and mechanisms in designing migration policy. The focus is on the possibilities for steering legal migration based on generalised international experience. Also, some potential challenges for Estonian immigration policy are discussed.
Increased international mobility of the labour force is a regular process that we should adapt to and handle within the common international rules in a way that would allow Estonia to achieve win-win results from the cross-border movement of labour force.
One of the preconditions for effiient offiials is relevant and objective evaluation of capability (and also capability shortfalls), and ensuring purposeful training and coaching on the basis of this. The forthcoming EU presidency of Estonia in 2018 enhances the need for effiient offiials even more, therefore it is necessary that during the years preceding the EU presidency, the existing capability shortfalls of the offiials connected with the EU are ascertained, and they are provided the training they need. The purpose of the article is to analyse how the evaluation of the EU-related capabilities and knowledge of the Estonian offiials has been conducted since 2002, and what have been the main lessons.
The article analyses the legal treatment and legal regulation of domestic violence. Domestic violence is rampant in Estonia, yet the police is not notifid of every case, even the most brutal ones; and even in the reported cases, only a small percentage leads to a guilty verdict.
The article deals with the findings of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Estonia Report and the analysis of the Global Entrepreneurship Development Index (GEDI) that focus on promoting the development of innovative enterprises with growth ambitions and increasing their share in total entrepreneurial activity. The article discusses what are the obstacles to development of such enterprises today, and also what are the possibilities for supporting their growth while taking into consideration different entrepreneurial aspirations.
E-voting may potentially lower participation thresholds and increase turnout, but its technical complexity may pose other barriers to participation.
Besides the Estonians, people of several other nationalities have lived on the territory of Estonia throughout its history. They have come and gone, and often these comings and goings have been violent and bloody, but in spite of everything the native people here, whose number in some periods has dwindled rather low, have preserved their own language and are an independent nation today.
The purpose of this article is to explore the socio-material factors reproducing different modes of involvement and shed some light on the prospects of their future development.
According to the public sphere conception of Habermas, communicative action is necessary for successful functioning of society. This article analyses the media sphere of Estonia, which is divided into two separate parts of information space by language – the Estonian-language media and the Russian-language media. The article claims that one reason why such a situation has emerged is the media policy of the Republic of Estonia. But its historical roots go deeper than the second independence period. In order to understand the Estonian media of today and to plan activities directed towards the future, it is necessary to analyse the steps and choices that have brought us to our present situation.
The idea of creating a Russian-language media competence centre that would mainly have the function of mediating the life in Estonia and in Europe in the widest meaning of this concept to the Russian-speaking target group is discussed more and more in Estonia.
A partial transfer to Estonian as the language of instruction in Russian-medium upper secondary schools in Estonia started in the early 1990s and culminated in 2010.
During recent years, awareness of entrepreneurship as a source of social activeness and precondition for economic welfare in the global economic competition has increased in the Estonian society.
* Peer reviewed research paper.
One of the requirements set by the European Union for the current EU Structural Funds period (2014–2020) is the existence of smart specialisation strategies in the states and regions that use the structural funds. The article discusses smart specialisation as one of the instruments for shaping and managing the research, development and innovation (RDI) policy.
Creative industries and their development have interested the policy shapers for more than twenty years. In spite of the fast international spreading of the concept of creative economy and creative economy policies, it cannot be said that the discussions, especially among the theoreticians, about the definition and contents of creative economy have grown lesser.
* Peer reviewed research paper.
International comparative studies mostly define Estonian economic model as free market economy.
The goal of the article is to examine the challenges and dangers involved in performance-based budgeting and to make recommendations on how to proceed with the performance budgeting reform in Estonia.
* Peer reviewed research paper.
This article argues that human rights should not depend on one’s sexual orientation, and that a hetereonormative legal system marginalises people by treating them as objects of state power.
Outcomes of research and development activities and innovation in the business sector of a state are shaped through a complicated, often contradictory process under the influence of various fields of innovation policy.
*The article has been written with the support of the targeted financing project No TMJJV 0037 of the Ministry of Education and Research "Path Dependence Model of Developing and Implementing the Innovation System of a Small Country".
PRAXIS Centre for Policy Studies conducted a study to see whether Estonian private sector employers consider the competence of the employees who have graduated from vocational education in recent years to be of the required level, and what are their expectations of the vocational education system. The study combined qualitative and quantitative methods; among other things, a survey was conducted among more than 400 businesses that had employed staff with vocational education.
The author has concentrated on two significant changes in the life of a young person: the transfer from the education system to the labour market, and becoming a parent instead of being someone’s child.
The article treats the economic and moral rights of the author on works created in execution of duties of employment. Examples are given from a short study on copyright carried out among the regular and visiting lecturers of the Police and Border Guard College of the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences.
Detection, prevention and elimination of security risks in the society depend on the capability of internal security leaders. The article analyses the needs for professional development and support services for the leaders, based on the results of the project „Creation and Implementation of Sustainable Development Support for Top and Middle Managers of Internal Security Agencies”.
* The article has been written within the framework of the research, development and creative activities programme of the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences, and reflects the personal positions of the authors.
The purpose of the article is to show how the choice of school on the basis of market principles causes the segregation of pupils into the so-called „good schools” and „not so good schools” on the basis of the background characteristics and strategic behaviour of their parents.
The article analyses the level and dynamics of the supply and spending of resources of the research and development policy in the EU Member States and in states closely associated with the EU. The role of research and development policy in the innovation systems of the states is compared. The research systematised theoretical treatments, analysed the problems highlighted in empirical studies and assessed the international position of the implementation of Estonian research and development policy on the basis of the empirical analysis of the data collected in the EU and the states closely associated with the EU.
The article examines the choices that influenced the emergence of the military institution of Estonia.
The article deals with the representation of ethnic minorities in the governance of Estonia. The representation of ethnic minorities among the officials of ministries deceased abruptly in the beginning of the 1990s during the initial period after the restoration of independence, and has been decreasing ever since. Immediately after the restoration of independence, about two-thirds of the officials were non-Estonians, now they form around 2–3 per cent.
While promoting free competition is inarguably an important tool for ensuring the effective functioning of markets, state regulations may sometimes still be justified and necessary due to market failures. Thus, it is essential to strike an appropriate balance between free competition and regulations. Such balance depends largely on the overall purpose the competition or the regulations are meant to achieve.
Since the 1990s, the population of Estonia has decreased. The largest decrease – around 200,000 people – took place between the censuses of 1989 and 2000; three fourths of it consisted of negative net migration. Not all cases of emigration were registered and, as a result of that, several tens of thousands of people who have left long ago are still in the population register of Estonia as permanent residents. At the census of 2000, the number of people counted was smaller than expected by about 60,000. Part of them had emigrated and not registered it; others were persons who remained uncounted, according to estimation, there were at least 20,000 of them.
In the author’s opinion, the current events in Estonia do not express the model of classical parliamentarism or the constitutional principle of the separation of powers, but function according to a corporative partocratic model of power.
This article is based on the author’s MA thesis defended at the Institute of Journalism and Communication of the University of Tartu and observes the users’ general expectations for the social media sites of government establishments.
Direct democracy is closely connected to the principle of national sovereignty. The latter emphasizes first of all the people as the bearers and the source of state power: the right to organise the political power and to approve of its structure belongs to the people, and has to arise from the legitimization and will of the people.
*Peer reviewed research paper.
The idea of innovation-based public procurements is mostly based on the belief that the public sector that is active in the market and that has a great purchase capability can influence the market participants through demand.
*Peer reviewed research paper.
2012 is the year of social innovation in the European Union. With this, we try to draw attention to the importance of innovations that initiate from the „grassroots” as well as to such aspects of implementation of „top-down” reforms and political changes that have remained in the shadows until now.
Major crises like nuclear accidents, terrorist attacks, food poisonings or even banking crises have provoked large-scale societal responses in Europe and world-wide. This article discusses the key explanations for public responses to risks, and the ways in which understanding of risks shapes individual and state-level decision-making.
All uncollected public financial claims – tax claims or fines – have an impact on the state budget and on the amount and quality of public services and goods provided by the state. So far the state has not established a single functioning central system for collecting its claims, public claims have no owner, and the collection process is characterised by fragmentation and institution-based logics.
The solving of drug problems faced by the police is very complicated; it requires the cooperation of people with different backgrounds and cultures.
In order to ensure the sustainability of the European social model it is important that an increasingly larger part of the working-age population, especially women with caring responsibilities, participated in the labour market and that they did so for a longer period than before.
The article characterizes the opinions prevailing in the society on equality of possibilities for acquiring education.
Praxis Center for Policy Studies has been conducting the studies of development trends of small and medium sized enterprises every third year since 2002.
The existing models of public service organisation are not really suitable any more for analysing modern teacher education. The pressure on productivity and effectiveness caused by globalisation blurs the specifics of career and position systems, and makes the issues connected with teachers as the key factor influencing the results of education much more complicated. Thus the issue of teacher education is not just a pedagogical issue, but also requires strategic political choices.
The aim of health system – longer life and more healthy life years – can be achieved in cooperation between different levels of health care.
This year’s population census and several initiatives have brought the people who have left Estonia after the restoration of independence to public attention.
One forms of authoritarian government bears a more colourful name than others – Sultanism.
The percentage of private member’s bills (PMB) in overall legislation in parliamentary systems tends to be small.
Innovation policy is essential for ensuring a country’s development and continuous enhancement of innovation performance.
*Peer-reviewed article. The research was supported from the funds of the European Social Fund through the Research and Innovation Policy Monitoring Programme.
The article focuses on the labour demand in the Estonian energy sector in a 10-year perspective.
*Peer-reviewed research paper.
On 21 June 2011, the general assembly of the Supreme Court of Estonia in Case No. 3-4-1-16-10 declared the institution of post-sentence detention, established for dealing with dangerous repeat offenders, to be unconstitutional. The purpose of the article is to draft possible answers to the question “How will the problem of habitual criminals that are dangerous to the society be dealt with in the future?”
This article discusses the fundamental principles of the Estonian Constitution from the viewpoint of the jurisprudence and legal literature of the Supreme Court of Estonia.
* The paper is based on the introductory article of the author’s book “Põhiõigused, demokraatia, õigusriik” (”Fundamental Rights, Democracy, Rule of Law”, 2011) and reflects the personal views of the author
The article is based on the master’s thesis on the Council of Europe Convention on Counterfeiting of Medical Products and Similar Crimes involving Threats to Public Health and related legal aspects.
The European Parliament Resolution adopted in November 2010 emphasises that in order to provide modern technologies and services to the wider public, the Member States must allocate appropriate funding to public service media.
*The article is based on the author’s doctoral thesis “EU media policy and survival of public service broadcasting in Estonia 1994–2010”, which was defended at the University of Tartu. – http://dspace.utlib.ee/dspace/bitstream/handle/10062/17927/joesaar_andres.pdf?sequence=1
Twice, in 2006 and in 2009, the Estonian education system has been assessed according to the comparative evaluation of the school pupils’ scholastic performance PISA (Program for International Student Assessment), coordinated by the Organisation of Economic Coopera-tion and Development (OECD).
In Estonia people have many possibilities to take part in the political processes but they must have thorough knowledge and much free time for that.
The article discusses the implementation of better regulation principles in internal security policy on the basis of the results of the content analysis of draft legislation and strategic policy documents and the e-survey of officials.
*Peer-reviewed research paper.
The gender wage gap influences all members of the society in one way or another.
For those who strive for gender equality in politics, the Riigikogu elections of 2011 were a disappointment because, in comparison to previous elections, the percentage of women among candidates and those elected decreased.
The purpose of the article is to assess the bases of Estonia’s economic policy within the context of economic crisis and the development of gross wage in general and by areas of activity before and during the crisis.
Since mid-1990s, Estonia has experienced a successful process of integration to the global economy.
*The statistical data of the article is as of 20 May 2011.
There are increasingly less countries in Europe where prisoners are automatically deprived of the right to vote by law, as is the case in Estonia.
The security sector is often mistakenly considered only the Government’s playground while actually the parliament as the representative body of the nation has an important role in handling security issues.
Since its creation the police has undergone significant changes.
The Court of Justice has interpreted the Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (data protection directive) in seven decisions made on the basis of references for preliminary ruling and applied the directive in three cases that reached the Court as a result of complaints.
Researchers have stated that Estonia lacks a definite family policy vision and resources which would enable the state to create a coherent and supporting family policy.
This article intends to evaluate the extent of revenue autonomy of local governments in Estonia and to offer opportunities to increase it. In order to effectively perform the duties assigned to them by law, local governments need to have adequate revenues. The authority which local governments have in determining the level and structure of their expenditures is highly dependent on the nature of their revenue sources. Revenue autonomy and accountability of local governments are best guaranteed through municipalities’ own revenues, i.e. local taxes, user charges and revenues from local property.
*Peer-reviewed research paper.
The article focuses on the local government reform in Estonia that was prepared since the middle of the 1930s and carried out at the end of that decade.
It is not the lack of policies or analyses that prevents the changes in the Estonian local government system to be carried out.
The article introduces the story of the development and the basic concepts of quality and the quality management, and the standard systems DIN and ISO.
One achievement of the last decade is the clearly acknowledged need to make the economy of the world and of every country more environment friendly, more sustainable in terms of energy and raw materials – this means, greener.
Mass media continues to play an increasing role in politics while the importance of the party membership takes the back seat, because the media offers a much quicker way to reach the voters than can be done by campaigning through party members.
Political parties operating at European level enable to control supranational power in Europe. Thus the political parties operating at European level contribute to shaping policies.
In August 2010 the Estonian National Youth Council conducted an online study among 15–30 year olds to find out how young people rate their access to labour market and career information and social services, how probable they consider landing the desired job, the importance they attach to informal studies and work practice in finding a job and in combining work and studies.
The article discusses the potential of general education as a developer of the coherence of the Estonian society and as a shaper of national identity on the basis of the subjects of mother tongue, literature, music, history and civic education.
This article discusses the meaning and relevance of ‘open innovation’ for Estonian entrepreneurs and policy-makers.
* Peer-reviewed research paper.
The article discusses the question of whether direct democracy (for example, a referendum) is a better resolution to certain legislative drafting issues than representative democracy, and that first of all from the aspect of the legitimacy of legislative drafting.
The article explains natural and private legal persons’ judicial and non-judicial remedies for breaches of EU law.
The authors state that, unlike the high parental benefit, child benefits paid to families in Estonia are very low.
The recently launched report “Responding to the challenge of financial sustainability in Estonia’s health system” (authors Sarah Thomson, Andres Võrk, Triin Habicht, Liis Rooväli, Tamàs Evetovits, Jarno Habicht) assesses the current performance of health system, the health financing policy and its financial sustainability.
Several local government reforms have taken place in Western countries since 1945. One of the reasons for reforms has been the concept that economic efficiency is related to the size of local government.
The article discusses whether, according to the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia, Eesti Pank may issue legislation of general application mandatory to third persons, that is, the right of Eesti Pank to issue Regulations.
For some time already, the foreign policy of Estonia has been looking for a new goal to strive towards and to engage in. Among other things, a proposal has been made to cooperate more with the Nordic and Baltic countries or all Baltic Sea states because cooperation should be simple and successful in that region already thanks to the similar history and good relations.
What the education system of a state is like and how it is managed, depends on the ideology adopted in the society and the ability to make professional decisions.
Section 37 of the Estonian Constitution provides the right to education without tuition fee in state and local government general education schools. It is an important fundamental right of an individual but its substantial essence tends to receive little attention in everyday political and social discussions.
In most cases, tax compliance is analyzed using economic models and relevant economic interpretations.
*Peer-reviewed article.
As the fundamental principles of the Constitution have a regulatory effect – they are binding – the need for finding them is undisputed.
The amendments made to the French Constitution in July 2008, consisting of a modernisation of the state institutions, are probably the most fundamental ever to have taken place in France during the Fifth Republic – that is, since the current French Constitution of 1958 was adopted – because of the unprecedented number (47 articles have been either added or modified) and scope of the amendments.
Every country has a sovereign right to shape its own immigration policy. Each country has to decide which aliens it allows on its territory and for what reason. By joining international organizations and entering into foreign treaties, under which the state assumes obligations toward individuals, a country places restrictions on its sovereign right to decide its immigration policy.
The article analyzes 30 local government development plans in Estonia.
This article provides an analysis of the development of Estonia’s system of local government up to the current time.
Adult education has been defined as one of the key components in raising the competitiveness of the economic environment of the European Union at the general and national level.
The basis of the article is an overview, written during the time the author was working in the law and analysis department of the Riigikogu Chancellery, of the involvement of NGOs and associations of companies in the writing of draft legislation on Riigikogu committees.
The article treats the status and development of internal audits in Estonia on the basis of assessments by practitioners and compares the process to that of other European countries, above all the Nordic countries of Sweden, Norway and Finland. The article relies on research conducted in autumn 2006 by an international working group of researchers and funded by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation, entitled The Common Body of Knowledge (CBOK 2006), as well as on the data from the CBOK Europe study. A selection was made from the significant aspects of internal audits.
A study conducted among officials confirms that knowledge of the influence, interests and coalition readiness of European Union Member States is one of the primary success factors for representation of Estonia’s interests in Europe.
The main objective of the article is to identify untapped potential for shaping Estonia’s higher educational policy offered by databases of research studies in the Estonian Research Information System ETIS and the Estonian Social Science Data Archive (ESSDA).
Regional disparities in economic development cause problems for a country as a whole, and thus governments try to reduce the discrepancies by using public sector policy and programmes. The success of such programmes requires an adequate assessment of the differences in regional development.
Estonia’s internal market is small and for this reason, the primary source of Estonian economic growth is export – meaning sales success in the world’s marketplace.
The deregulated labour market became a new solution in the 1990s for reducing unemployment and offering a more efficient way for employers to cope with economic cycles.
Regulatory analyses of the content of explanatory memoranda to draft legislation show to what extent Estonian ministers and ministry officials are able to implement principles of knowledge-based policy and Better Regulation in legislation that impacts the lives and jobs of Estonians.
Although analysis of the impacts of legal acts has been discussed and written about in Estonia for years, the discussion to this point has not had a significant effect on legislative drafting practice, as the discussion on this topic has not met with the necessary political attention and support.
Estonia has justified the need to establish an upper limit for election campaigns by arguing that campaign expenses have got out of hand as well as with the need to restore politics to the level of ideas and platforms, not a competition between ad agencies.
As of spring 2009, the European Court of Human Rights had issued 18 substantive court decisions regarding cases originating in Estonia.
The article analyzes parental benefits, which were established in Estonia in 2004, and their possible effect on family planning decisions and employment of women.
The authors state that the palette of political styles incited by core values in Estonian politics is variegated and does not stand in the way of further development.
E-learning has been high on the political agenda in Estonia for more than ten years due to unusual consensus on the issue amongst political parties.
As a whole, the structure of the islands’ economy is often one-sided and very vulnerable, the level of the working population’s skills is lower and there is less innovation than in other regions, the range of public services is limited and the price level is higher.
In transition countries such as Estonia, solely the vaunted open economy and foreign investments do not automatically engender a broader transformation of industrial structure from mass production toward greater knowledge and skills.
The article gives an overview of the academic results of students at Estonian general educational institutions in comparison with international results, and describes the risks posed to Estonian general education.
A number of Estonian political forces have recently expressed the position that the public (“people”, “citizens” etc) must take greater part in political decision-making processes on both the state and local government level.
The author notes that the latest research confirms the previous assessments of experts: the prevailing form of criminal collaboration is a network of personal relationships that criminals successfully use to commit crimes.
The current scheme for calculating parental benefits for working parents is poor, as it creates situations where the benefits may become reduced by several thousand kroons if the beneficiary earns only one extra kroon. The problem becomes deeper as wages and benefits increase.
There is extremely little information in Estonia’s cultural sphere regarding both the content of the political culture and the characteristic traits of political culture in Estonia.
The current stabilization or even decline in party membership indicates the end of a mass party era.
Considering the social momentousness of the issues dealt with in the new Family Law Bill that has been introduced in the Riigikogu, the Chancellery of the Riigikogu commissioned an analysis of the social implications of the Family Law Bill from the expert group at the University of Tartu’s Institute of Sociology and Social Policy.
The Estonian School of Diplomacy was commissioned by the Riigikogu to conduct a survey on Estonia’s representation and participation in the working groups of the European Union’s Council of Ministers.
Instead of viewing the modern state and the constitutional state from an abstract point of view, the author grounds his approach on legal dogmatics and legal principles.
On the order of the Estonian Development Fund, a work group set up at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in the second half of 2007 investigated the international competitiveness of the Estonian economy and the prospects for its development in a longer, 5-10-year perspective.
This article, which uses the “Relocation of production in labour-demanding branches of industry” survey conducted within the framework of the EU Framework Programme VI as a source, reflects on the factors which guide international companies in the globalisation process with respect to activities based predominantly on private property and profit-seeking.
The purpose of this article is to pinpoint the central problems faced by the Estonian economy in the medium to long perspective. Since 1999, Estonian companies and the government have considered it their primary goal to reduce public sector expenses as a proportion of the gross domestic output.
The article focuses on the measures for implementation of the EU directives 2004/17EC and 2004/18/EC, the Public Procurement Act of the Republic of Estonia and the Estonian environment-friendly and sustainable public procurement priorities 2007-2009, the implementation of which requires that the state and local government authorities have interdisciplinary knowledge of sustainable consumption, production and public procurement options as well as leadership capability.
According to several institutions, the public procurement area has quite a few problems.
A new draft Employment Contracts Act has been prepared in Estonia.
Encounters between citizens and the police mostly revolve around punishment for misdemeanours.
*The article is based on the report delivered at the meeting of the Estonian Academic Law Society on 16 April 2008 in Tartu.
The structure of the Estonian local government is kept as simple as possible: municipality and city, with municipality district and city district on the lower level.
In many cases, local governments have not been able to act according to the needs and interests of municipal residents and in adherence to the principles of local government.
The main empirical goal of the article is to explain how communication of government authorities and their associated groups in legislative drafting affects legislative process before the bill reaches the Parliament, and achievement of the legitimacy of the draft act.
Foreign policy theory describes and explains the foreign-policy decision-making process – how decisions are reached and carried out. Decision-making mechanisms are ordinarily depicted and analyzed with the help of a rational and bureaucratic model.
Tax morals – in the sense of the readiness of an individual to pay taxes in the extent required – is an important foundation of tax obedience and is influenced by many factors.
The Riigikogu and the Government of the Republic face a serious task – influencing the factors impeding the implementation of innovation policy.
The Internet is in its democratic ideal form a tool for enhancing citizens´ participation in political life. For participation in local politics and life, citizens can read or send comments in different forums operated by local municipalities and local newspapers.
In analyzing the objectives of draft legislation tabled by members of parliament, it has been noted that they are often introduced for ulterior objectives, not out of a desire to make a contribution to the legislation.
Drawing on her familiarity with practices in different countries, the author raises the question of whether it would be expedient for Estonia to abandon the requirement that a member of parliament may not simultaneously hold a minister´s post and vice versa.
The Riigikogu passed the Environmental Liability Act. The Act does not regulate all liability for environmental matters or compensation of all damage done to the entire environment. This article deals with the so-called borderline areas of the Act: what sort of liability the legislation governs and what kind it does not, what is covered by the definition of environmental damage, and why a certain part of the environment was omitted from the Act.
A look at Estonian legal practice often leaves the impression that we have not yet acceded to the European Union, as Estonian law is the only kind which is known and applied, even if Estonian law is in direct conflict with the law of the Community. A good example of such a conflict is the recent incident of logging in Suurupi, where it appeared that Estonian law did not provide for a way to prohibit the logging, but where from the standpoint of European law a prohibition was obvious as this was a Natura “preselection” area.
Oil shale is a strategic natural asset for Estonia which ensures independence for the state in the field of energy.
The article aims to analyze the change in the role of Eesti Pank that will occur after the transition from the kroon to the euro.
Estonia’s innovation policy was designed to be centred on the state, but the state has not been a very active leader. It can even be argued that the state has abandoned its leadership role.
The necessary tax base for ensuring quality public services and the inseparably connected issue of income tax revenue are among the key problems of Estonian local governments.
The purpose of the article is to analyze the social welfare system in the light of general system theory.
Estonian legislation prescribes special pensions for the following categories of officials: police officials, military officials, border guards, judges, prosecutors, chancellor of justice, officials of the state audit and the President.
The article analyzes the role of cash benefits and tax concessions for families with children in reducing poverty in Estonia.
In the run-up to NATO accession there was consensus among political parties when it came to Estonian foreign and security policy. Now that Estonia is a member of the organization, however, political discussion has arisen concerning the various alternatives and opportunities for guaranteeing national security.
Coalition parties in the Estonian parliament have been accused on numerous occasions of using so-called steamroller tactics to push through their bills or amendments while pushing aside the bills or amendments of opposition parties without any debate. The aim of this article is to provide an assessment of whether steamroller tactics have actually been used in the Estonian parliament.
In 2005–2006 a study commissioned by the State Chancellery was conducted in Estonia, entitled “Roles and attitudes in public service”.
Since the end of the Cold War, cooperation has made a comeback in Europe, and in the field of population, cooperation between states has been taking place already for more than 15 years.
During recent years the necessity of reducing administrative burdens has been high on the agenda as one topic of the Lisbon Strategy.
Despite impressive economic growth rates (since 1994, GDP has doubled in real terms), and like many other transition economies, for many years Estonia has experienced jobless or even job loss growth. Employment declined between 1994 and 2005 from 675,000 to 602,000. This job loss partly reflects closure of many enterprises, as well as “defensive restructuring” by enterprises, a process in which redundant labour is shed in order to increase productivity, the gains from which are then translated into higher wages rather than higher employment.
*The views expressed in this article reflect the personal opinions of the author, and may not coincide with the official positions of the World Bank.
The departure of workforce abroad has been described in Estonia as the biggest problem faced by the health care sector.
Parliament is a central institution in representative democracy. But are the members of parliament themselves central to the functioning of the institutions or are they merely vehicles for the will of someone else (party)?
Innovation in the area of information technology makes it possible to use telework (telecommuting) as an integral part of organization of work in Estonian public agencies.
The article reconstructs the policy-making process of two Estonian legal acts: the Government of the Republic Act and the Local Government Act, which were made 1992–1994.
The role and position of minister's adviser in Estonian politics and civil service system is a topic that has received little attention so far.
Once again, Estonia was not able to elect a new president in the Riigikogu.
*The author thanks Rein Taagpera for his comments to the earlier version of the article.
*Marquis de Condorcet was an 18th century French scientist, one of the first to apply mathematics in the social sciences.
What are the institutional preconditions for a knowledge-based and sustainable public policy?
The article views the various scenarios for the future of the European Union as seen by a small member state such as Estonia.
The debate over Estonia's eastern border – in particular the possibility and need to encode it in legislation, based on the existing de facto boundary line – has lasted for practically the entire period of the regained independence among both politicians and the public, including the media.
The article treats current research conducted by the University of Tartu Department of Political Science. The focus of the article lies on the defining of foreign policy ideology of the Estonian political parties in the Estonian parliament Riigikogu (Centre Party, People's Party, Pro Patria, Reform Party, Res Publica, Social Democratic Party).
Russian organized crime was created by the shadow economy and the criminal subculture.
Democratic societies are built on trust. The 47% turnout at the last local elections shows that the trust between electors and elected necessary for successful action is lacking. The perceived trustworthiness of the current Riigikogu will determine how great a share of the citizenry makes the effort in a year's time to go to the polls and elect the next, ninth membership of the Riigikogu.
It may seem that members of parliament and sociologists live in different worlds. This is confirmed by an expert survey conducted among Riigikogu members and social scientists as part of the project “Democracy and national interests”, financed by the Open Estonia Foundation.
The article treats the participation of European youth aged 15 to 25 in protest actions that may include violence. Estonian, Finnish and French youth are the main subjects. The article is based on the consideration that participation in protest actions is influenced by views as well as social standing. The tendency to protest was measured using a consolidated index made up of six indicators: participation in illegal demonstrations, run-ins with the police, run-ins with opponents, damage to property, occupying of buildings and facilities, and traffic blocking. The empirical analysis took place in the framework of the EUYOUPART project on the basis of data gathered in December 2004. The correlations were evaluated using the Spearman correlation coefficient.
Most efforts to conceptualize power have approached the concept by either attempting to define the term or listing its bases and sources. The concept of power still engenders a lot of controversy, as scholarly works argue for and against various definitions, forms, and uses of power.
The article presents an overview of natural gas reserves, production volumes and dependence on imports, the use of gas and the gas pipeline network in the Baltics and new projects in the Baltic Sea region.
Ensuring internal security is a field where much depends on cooperation between various agencies.
Information shortage is a common problem in crisis situations and is especially heightened in the context of time pressure.
The Estonian civil service system has been in the process of reform since Estonia regained its independence in 1991.
The emergence of cities 100-150 years ago raised social and economic issues among which city management, especially its expedient decentralisation by means of city districts, occupies a prominent place. In the Republic of Estonia, city districts were established in the 1930s.
In the course of the reforms of the period of restoration of independence and transition to a market economy, Estonia developed different attitudes toward the real estate necessary for performing state functions. Residential units were overwhelmingly privatized and housing problems were left to the market to resolve; real estate for production and service went into the ownership of companies, in which the state may hold a share; institutions that provided public services (universities, hospitals, museums) went to foundations, companies and persons under public law, which the state contracts for services; the legislation adopted by the Riigikogu and long-term activity plans form the basis for developing state forests and roads.
The article analyzes Estonia's current and prospective employee involvement systems on the background of other European Union states.
Current evidence suggests a deteriorating working environment in the new member states of Central and Eastern Europe.
Upon becoming a State Party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, most countries face the need to adopt implementing legislation. This is due to the so-called principle of complementarity, which tacitly presumes that States are able to prosecute the same crimes at the ICC, and also because legislation might be necessary for the State to cooperate with the Court. In Estonia, the relevant provisions are contained in the fairly new and modern Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. The article at hand outlines some of the problems that still remain in Estonian law with regard to the ICC.
The right of workers to strike is one of the elements of freedom of association and is inseparably tied to the right to collective bargaining.
Estonia has reached a stage of development in its legislative drafting where the laws for all the important walks of life appear to already have been adopted, several major legal acts being on the second time around.
Volatility indexes most often deal with the problems of democratic development and the stabilization of party systems.
Estonian innovation policy has primarily been aimed at commercialization of science and knowledge at scientific institutions: high technology.
Since mass layoffs are a fairly new concept in Estonia's regulation of working relations, we do not yet have practical experiences in this field.
Issues related to the funding of general education are very much the subject of debate not only in Estonia, but all over the world.
The opportunities of the system of local government financing currently used in Estonia have been exhausted.
The article provides an overview of one aspect of the project Political Participation of Young People in Europe (EUYOUPART) – the equivalency of data from international survey polls.
The role of environmental taxes and fees is small in Estonia compared to the member states of the European Union, and as a result, the influence on economic players is also small and does not motivate the latter to act in more conservationist fashion.
The article focuses on the relations between the legislative and executive powers in Estonia against the background of EU membership.
The aim of the article is to give a brief overview of the changes the CCEEs that joined the EU on 1 May 2004 made in their parliamentary EU scrutiny mechanisms. Most of these countries have opted for the so-called “Nordic Model” which means a strong parliamentary involvement in EU decision-making process.
This May and June, the topics related to the Riigikogu's legislative activity that received the most media attention were e-voting, the ban on outdoor advertisements and ratification of the Estonian-Russian border treaty.
The share of e-mail in conveying information for official use has increased from year to year.
The primary goal of the government of Great Britain is to give everyone the opportunity to escape the clutches of poverty and social exclusion, and a long-term antipoverty strategy has been designed.
The main aims of Baltic cooperation in the years 1918–1940 and 1989–1991 were to establish a union engaged in security and foreign policy matters. During the first period, Finland, Poland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark were viewed as partners in addition to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Since 1989, only the three Baltic countries are included in the cooperation.
Concern over the unequal level of schools has become greater in recent years and affects both parents and politicians.
Estonian education faces four possible paths: to continue with the curriculum adopted in 2002 (RÕK 2002); to use the general part of the curriculum prepared by the University of Tartu curriculum development centre as a basis; to use as a basis the general part of the curriculum prepared by Bit/Avita; or to adapt the curriculum of the Republic of Finland.
Based on Estonia's demographic situation and considering the characteristics of regional development, a network of schools must be formed in a balanced manner as well as in a way that is informative and engaging for all interested parties.
One of the responsibilities of the state in fostering participatory democracy includes involving interest groups in regulatory and decision-making processes on broader terms.
The answer to the question whether in the future, European citizenship will serve only to supplement the set of civic rights in each member states, or be a first step in establishing world citizenship, will be provided by a Europe-wide debate in which Estonia is also a participant.
Considering the important social functions played by agriculture, which besides ensuring population density and jobs in the countryside, ensures the self-sufficiency of food production, the importance of agriculture should be much greater than it is currently.
The tax policy that Estonia has to date followed – creating a climate favorable to the private sector and motivating employees – has been criticized as well as praised, the latter on the international level.
Eurobarometer studies – public opinion surveys conducted in European Union member states and candidate countries – have been organized for over thirty years. Eurobarometer encompasses various types of studies which are designed based on the need to gather information from various target groups of varying response times and comprehensiveness.
Propaganda began to be studied on a theoretical level after World War I.
In the general sense, dissenting opinions can differ from majority opinions in terms of justification, or justification and conclusions.
This year, the 57th World Health Care Congress adopted a resolution on international migration calling on countries to ameliorate the negative impacts of migration of health care workers, especially in developing countries.
With the enlargement of the European Union, immigration of doctors and other health care workers is under increased attention.
The process of creating regulations or secondary legislation has not been analyzed extensively, even though a large part of our daily lives is regulated by such acts and the amount of secondary legislation is continually on the rise.
Estonia's social policy was shaped in cooperation with the Nordic countries and the Phare project.
Even though the stability of governments has been under the lens of political scientists for a long time, only in recent times have the changes occurring within a government received attention.
This article treats the selection of candidates in six Estonian parliamentary parties in two election periods from 1999-2003 in order to evaluate how democratic the selection was and the changes in the process.
An analysis of Estonian elderly policy from the standpoint of sustainability shows that the Estonian pension system is not socially or financially sustainable, since it does not ensure pensioner well-being.
Despite the high incidence of offenses and sentencing to secure units in Estonia, there has been very little research on youth offenders, of either the factors associated with offending or systematic study of how convicted young offenders may differ from other young people living in the community.
An essential basis of identification has disappeared for many Russian-speakers of Estonia along with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The parliament embodies the state's highest authority - the representation of the Estonian people. Thus one of the most important criteria for the Riigikogu's activity is its trustworthiness in the public eye.
As a new member of the EU, it is natural that Estonian civil servants are only still learning to discern the nuances of the European Union's decision-making process and are amassing experience and contacts.
The article is based on the findings of the study on compliance of the Estonian pension system with the 11 common pension objectives of the European Union. The study was commissioned by the Government Office and the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia and carried out by the expert team of the PRAXIS Center for Policy Studies.
The current article examines the attitude of municipalities to the changes made to the state investment program that took place after the "Procedure of Composing the State Investment Program" of 2000 entered into force.
Cybercrime as a subset of crime is frequently tied to other types of crime such as copyright violations, crimes against property (computer swindles), crimes against persons (child pornography) and the like.
The aim of the study is to examine the consequences of the size of a state with regard to the Europeanization of the Estonian public administration.
The politicization of top officials and the lack of clarity in the division of labor between administrative and political - seen as obstacles to the policy formation process - are fairly common topics for discussion.
During the period preceding the EU accession referendum in September 2003, those who opposed Estonia's EU membership referred to themselves as "accession opponents" or "independents" instead of "Eurosceptics".
The primary goal of electronic voting is considered to be raising voting participation. It is still considered questionable in Estonia whether adoption of e-voting will significantly increase voter turnout.
The article analyzes recent developments in regulatory impact analysis (RIA) by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Union (EU) and relates them to the discussions on development of RIA in Estonia.
According to the spirit and the letter (Article 4 and 146 provisions) of the constitution, the legislative, executive and judicial activity of the state is organized on the basis of separation of powers and the principle of checks and balances.
Construction is an activity that results in long-term changes to the environment, due to which the Building Act is one of the most important legal acts regulating construction in the community.
Population policy is in need of clear strategic goals so that we would not be running headlong in several directions at once or get bogged down in petty bickering that might well result in short-term gains but are pointless or even harmful in the long run.
There is a change occurring in our collective consciousness: the notion that children are the personal interest of every family is being replaced with the understanding that children are the collective interest of the family and society (state). In ten years of independence we have reached a serious demographic crisis with no way out without an active parenthood policy on the state level. The parental allowance is the first active step by the state and it cannot be the last.
Socio-demographic changes have forced the architects of social policy to seek better family policy solutions for society's new needs. The article is based on the findings of the 2003 study IPROSEC (Improving Policy Responses and Outcomes to Socio-Economic Challenges: changing family structures, policy and practice) funded as part of the European Commission's Framework Programme 5 and conducted from 2000-2003. Eleven countries took part in the study, 8 of them EU members (Spain, Ireland, Italy, Greece, France, Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom) and three candidate states (Estonia, Poland, Hungary).
TALO's collective bargaining agreements with the government worked well until 1999; wage policy planning then started to deteriorate. Subsequent negotiations between TALO and the government became unspecific and the plain and accepted minimum salary scale that had evolved up to that point was effectively demolished.
In Estonia, the key role in developing a social dialogue is in the hands of the state, insofar as both administration of the institutions engaged in the dialogue, and regulation of legislation and the job market. Thus the model for social dialogue tends to be disproportionately slanted toward the state and social partnerships are tagging along, as it were.
The need for a new regional policy has long been clear to all those even remotely involved with regional issues. Unfortunately, it is far from easy to achieve a political compromise between different parties on such a complicated issue.
One of the main characteristics of modern capitalism is mass culture, the part of culture that influences all of society and the people in it.
Direct and balanced information on the activity of state institutions on radio, TV and other media allows public opinion to be shaped as objectively as possible, conveying politicians' views in detail in their proper context. The best prospects of increasing trust in state authority are considered to lie in informational broadcasts on public broadcasting. 57% of Estonians consider this to be the case.
The author gives an overview of the Teachers' Newsletter he edits and the Haridus (Education) mailing list. This list has 750 subscribers.
For some time now, western industrialized Europe has realized that traditional (police) control over crime offers little in the way of new opportunities. Modernization through police procedural reform and better equipment is also barren from the perspective of deterrence.
Crime is undoubtedly a phenomenon for which there is no good explanatory theory, even today.
The Riigikogu's seven years of practice in ordering sociological and public opinion studies is quite unique among Europe's parliaments in terms of content, related to parliament's constitutional functions, as well as the procedure used to reach consensus in preparing the studies.
Roger Harrison and his leading proponent Charles Handy became well-known in the 1970s for applying "ideal type" methods in studying organizational culture. There are four basic types of organizational culture in Harrison's construct: power-centered, role-centered, achievement-minded, person-centered. No working organization is ever 100% pure, but according to Harrison, one of the four always dominates.
Conventional wisdom holds that propaganda is a way of brainwashing people, and somehow unethical. But scholars of government see propaganda as just as important in democratic states as in totalitarian ones.
One of the conditions for achieving contemporary public administration is effective and high-quality supervisory mechanisms.
Much data has been gathered to understand the political preference of the electorate in Estonia. But what good are data if they are not put to use to further develop and modernize politicians' and officials' knowledge?
In March 2003, the first woman was elected speaker of parliament - Ene Ergma.
A legislative bill is never without accompanying documents that annotate its content and aims, helping legislators understand the necessity of passing the law and propriety of the measures within.
The drafting and passage of the most important politico-economic document of the year, the state budget, are regulated in Estonia chiefly by three laws: the Constitution, the State Budget Act and the parliamentary rules of procedure.
Concerns involving the free movement of workers in Estonia are different from the ones in current EU member states. It is not an influx that is feared but rather an exodus of younger people due to a preponderance of highly qualified people and a resulting shortage of staff and drop in competitiveness.
The information-based economy needs workers who are able to integrate their skills with personal traits and views to adapt to the period of economic transition.
The role of parties is influential in local government, especially at election time. In their views and work as representatives, council members still consider the views of the local people more than their party.
Following the entry into force of the Public Procurement Act on 1 April 2001, the question has arisen of why buyers or public organizations do not use open tenders and still try almost without exception to offer unadvertised tenders, which are regulated by a special section of the Act.
Even though a great volume of operations and development plans have been drawn up in Estonia over the last few years, making them official in government has been a complicated affair.
The article focuses on Estonia's political elite's vision of politics and society, in the context of the media discussion of the growing distance between people and politicians.
The public nature of Riigikogu sessions and of voting records is one of the most important foundations of democracy, giving constituents the opportunity of getting information on the work and record of MPs. To better implement the principle of transparency, committee discussions and votes should also be made available, for example by posting them on the legislature's website.
Human society is a complicated system in which orientation would be impossible without universal standards of behavior.
From time to time, the topic of salary and employment benefits for members of parliament crops up, producing widespread discussion among the populace and providing occasion to review the laws. The law on compensation of MPs has been amended on four occasions: in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2001.
With the recent introduction of bills on pensions for MPs in mind, the Chancellery of the Riigikogu Economic and Social Information Department gathered background information on retirement benefits in other countries. This work gives a small overview of the results and offers some suggestions for reforming Estonia's system.
The purpose of the analysis was to examine the extent to which Estonians and non-Estonians' trust in political institutions on the local and national level is influenced by social capital and the perception that various political institutions are open to influence.
As a result of a discussion among the members of the Riigikogu Toimetised editorial board, a questionnaire with cover letter from MPs Anti Liiv (Estonian Centre Party) and Ivar Tallo (Mõõdukad) was sent to all cabinet ministers to get an overview of stated budget-funded surveys commissioned between 1999-2001 - the number, cost and respondents, the relationship of surveys to legislation and way in which they were commissioned.
MSI's study on studies and analyses conducted at the behest of state institutions turned up results that more or less were expected and objectively reflected the prevailing confusion and conditions where the rules of the game have not been defined. According to the MSI study, the best way to alleviate this situation is to define clear categories for studies. An amendment which would list the categories should avoid situations where money earmarked for surveys is not used as intended.
RiTo's second volume contained two articles tinged with skepticism where modernization of public administration was concerned, one from Ülle Madise (129-134) and the other by Tiina Randma and Taavi Annus (135-144). The same edition was graced by then-PM Mart Laar's article on the necessity of modernization (40-46).
A local initiative workgroup, set up in the Riigikogu in 2001 on the initiative of the Kodukant Small Town and Village Movement, ordered a survey of relations between villages, village leaders, local governments and the state to clarify the need - on a background of regional policy, administrative reform and processes tied with European integration - to regulate by law the activity of village leadership.
In summary, we can say that employment programs vary greatly from country to country. Studies show that a program that is effective in a certain group in one country will not necessarily work in another. Thus it is important to gauge the influence of a state-run labor program on a regular basis and adapt it according to needs.
In seeking solutions to high unemployment - one of Estonia's most serious economic problems - the tax system and job market have fallen under the lens more and more often. In addition to structural factors, tax burden is a potentially significant factor influencing the level of unemployment. The article examines Estonia's tax burden in an international context as well as the links between employment and taxation.
As Estonia was shaking off the Soviet yoke, the idea of joining the EU had an entirely different meaning than it does today, now that Estonia is one of the more certain candidates in the current round of accession.
Upon Estonia's accession to the EU and in consideration of the ratified Kyoto agreement, the Riigikogu and government need to support electricity production from sustainable sources alongside oil shale-based production.
Corruption in the legal sense does not match the definition used by journalists and newspaper readers.
One of the purposes of the project, Limiting Corruption in a Transitional Society, was to identify which stage of state procurement posed the biggest danger of corruption and how to discourage it with legal measures.
The term conflict of interest is central to anti-corruption regulation, since many different codes of economic law are directed at preventing them.
A public survey done in autumn 2001 by the International and Social Studies Institute at the order of the Riigikogu Chancellery shows the reasons for low political trust in links to other societal problems.
Several years of experience working with linguists in the vocational master's degree program for Tartu University linguists inspired me to write in RiTo on the relationship between language and law, with the emphasis on language.
At the request of the Riigikogu Chancellery, Rull & Rumm analysed how the Riigikogu was received by the public in 2001 on the basis of online and print media. On the basis of the analyses, it can be said that the activities of the party factions received the most coverage.
Trust in the Riigikogu is tied to how informed people are of that institution. Ignorance breeds a feeling of vagueness and a desire to let things just go as they will. The article looks at how people's level of consciousness of the Riigikogu's work and duties has changed, where they get their information from or prefer to get it from, and whether they consider the coverage of the Riigikogu satisfactory.
The article analyses how Estonia's two largest dailies covered values used in implementing policy from 1997-2001.
Minorities in Estonia are a community of many nationalities. Integration and cultural policy vis-à-vis minorities have been on the agenda ever since restoration of independence.
Engineering is a way of life, a creative activity that features by a continuous quest, the need to think in terms of optimum values, bringing new ideas to fruition.
Central and Eastern European states have gone through dramatic times over the last decade. The reform of the economic environment from a centralised command economy to a free market-centred one has produced winners as well as losers.
House and home have considerable impact on people's health, well-being and level of opportunity. Estonia's transitional society has not addressed residential issues very much.
The main goal of regulation is to benefit the social weal and create a macroeconomic environment that would ensure competitiveness.
Democracy is impossible without free press. This is what media theoreticians, political scientists and commentators tell us. But this consensus brings up new questions: what kind of free press does democracy need, and why does it need it?
Propaganda has been around for centuries, and the word has always had a derogatory connotation. Around the middle of the last century propaganda was renamed public relations, so that the people would not associate the agitation of democratic governments with the brainwashing of dictatorships.
The origins of propaganda may be traced back to the time when groups of people first exercised power over others. This implies that in those days already attempts were being made to influence the public. The word propaganda (L. propagare - 'to spread') is assumed to originate from the organisation Congregatio de propaganda fide of the Roman Catholic cardinals that was founded by Pope Gregory XV in 1622.
There is a considerable gap between the output of the Estonian educational system and the demand for education from the labour market.
Will Estonian educational policy be successful? It all depends on to what extent it will be possible to harmonise the activities of the ministries that influence the implementation of educational policy, and also whether these activities can be linked to the overall strategic goals of the educational policy.
In the European Union (EU), integration works mainly through legal instruments. In formal addresses, the community is often referred to as a "legal community", "une communauté du droit", "Rechtsgemeinschaft". Legal forms are the focus of the whole of the EU's operation. Indeed, in terms of legal influences, membership in the EU differs radically from the common activities of other international associations. What makes the situation a complicated one, both for Estonia and several other countries of Eastern and Central Europe, is that the legal reforms introduced during recent years have not been completed.
The letter of the law gives the laws their form, but the deeper goals of laws are not juridical in their essence.
Examining the practices of investments of the local governments so far, it may be said that the seven-year-old system of investment subsidies to local governments has been characterised by permanent changes; fragmentary distribution of financial means; arbitrary decision-making; lack of clear criteria; during some years also a great influence of lobby work; and during the last two years, centralisation.
European Union (EU) decisions are made not only in Brussels. The homework performed in each member state is what matters. If we want this to go smoothly and want one common vote representing the state of Estonia in Brussels in the future, then now is the time to start thinking what the procedure of EU-related decision-making could look like in Estonia. It is true that first a number of foundational issues should be settled: conducting a referendum, possible amendment of the Constitution - which should not be confined to politics, but should also be carefully contemplated and justified also judicially.
After accession to the European Union, the role of representation of the people will be limited, in the context of legislation, to the problem of how to ensure legislative control over the executive power, which is the state's main representative in the decision-making process on the European level.
After entering into the Association Agreement in 1995, Estonia started making preparations for harmonisation of its legislation with the European Union's acquis communautaire. In reply to The White Paper: Preparation of the Associated Countries of Central and Eastern Europe for Integration to the Internal Market of the European Union, an action plan of the Government of the Republic was developed in 1996 for Estonia's integration into the European Union (known also as The Blue Paper). The action plans of the subsequent years also rely on the structure of The White Paper.
A great proportion of the state's social benefits, including welfare, are paid to families that are not poor. Of the financial means allocated for ensuring the coping threshold, 62.3% is spent on supporting non-poor families. In the case of child or unemployment benefits, it is actually not the aim that these should reach only poor families. But unemployment benefits turned out to be directed most of all towards the poor - nearly half was received by the families living below poverty level.
Application of information and communication technology in public administration will ring great changes in the arrangements of public administration and set new requirements in front of the institutions executing public power.
The aim of administrative reforms of the recent decades has been to simplify administrative procedure and to introduce a focus on the citizen in public services. For the citizen, the main indications of quality service are speed, competence, comfort, fairness, and effectiveness. Focus on the citizen is provided by concentrating as many services as possible in a single location or unit in order to reduce the number of direct contacts with civil servants necessary to receive a service or meet a request.
Recently, the Government has submitted the Estonian Science and Technology Strategy "Knowledge-based Estonia" to the Riigikogu. The speech of Prime Minister Mart Laar, and the accompanying speeches of Mart Meri, and the author of this paper, have illuminated several aspects of science and technology in Estonia and the necessities of the state. This paper gives an additional viewpoint concerning several activities and choices in formulating the aims of science and technology for a small country, stressing the needs for the future and possible hindrances.
People in power have always liked to exchange ideas with sociologists. Already in ancient Greece, philosophers debated on the subject of the ideal organisation of society and policy. In today's developed industrial countries, it is hard to imagine the policy-making process without the active involvement of social scientists, research institutes, universities and private companies.
There are two questions at the heart of this debate: first, does the sociology of law as a science have a future in Estonia and, secondly, can we fully understand and implement the opportunities provided by the sociology of law?
Some of Estonia's more active members of the legislature are restless in their call to do away with the traditional, the classical, i.e. formal logical approach and, instead, to adopt a more pragmatic view of things. This approach is based on the assumption that a logical approach is outdated, superficial and misleading. The proliferation of such statements is a deliberate attempt to revive primitive Marxist ideology, which was discarded even by Marxists and Leninist themselves already in the 1960's.
Cognition, media and political communication are being shaped daily. Since there is less time for decisions, especially in the case of political decisions, no one is able to go into details. Cognitive heuristics as a dimension of ambiguity may direct the decision-making process rightly or wrongly. A typical example of this situation was the findings of one social study, which was not analysed in depth by the press. As a result, the findings were misinterpreted and lead to wrong political decisions.
The Internet is changing the way all organisations operate and do business. The conventional Information System and Information Technology Strategies of the past are no longer sufficient or appropriate. Instead, a different approach is needed that takes into account the new convergence of content.
The 1990's brought not only six elections, but also increasingly acute problems that were new to Estonian political life.
Participation in the Riigikogu elections has tumbled to a worrisome degree because all too many people think popular vote has no impact.
The country's electoral system is one of the central elements of its political system. Although one may think that changing an electoral system is relatively easy, electoral reforms are a very rare phenomenon in developed democracies.
The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) recently gauged the civic knowledge and attitudes of 14-year-olds in 26 countries. Current paper deals with electoral attitudes and expected behaviour of Estonian teenagers based on data of above IEA Civic Education Study.
The electoral crisis in the USA got the unusually lively coverage in Estonia for the following reasons: being the most important strategic partner and ally of Estonia the future of American developments and the nature of its democratic institutions are of vital interest for Estonia. The role of the USA and the preservation of America's democratic values is even more important for Estonia today as we face the strong gravitational forces from basically socialist and bureaucratic institutions of the EU. Until Estonia has to cope with the threats like the ones exercised by the EU against Austria the ally able to balance out these challenges remains in the USA.
Estonia's integration into the EU has three levels of convergence: nominal, real and institutional convergence.
The new Public Procurements Act, which was implemented on April 1, 2001, introduced a new procedure for resolving disputes concerning public tenders. The Constitution of Estonia states that it must be possible to protect free competition and contest in the court of law the awarding of public tenders and orders. This protection must be efficient. National interests require that disputes in procurement matters are resolved as quickly as possible.
An important element in the endowment pension scheme is that it requires adequate savings to function. Therefore, a decision to launch an endowment pension scheme cannot merely be political. Instead, it should be an integrated economic resolution, which reinforces the need to re-invest endowment pension funds in the country's economy, and thus lower the cost of finance capital for domestic businessmen. However, more important that that is to ensure that the obligation to lay aside money for pension reform does not increase the poverty of Estonian society.
A pension concept based on three pillars was approved by the last government and today the law provisions for two of them: a state pension (I pillar) and voluntary accumulative insurance (III pillar). The II pillar - the implementation of the principles of an obligatory accumulative insurance - has so far been held back by two painful sets of problems.
The budget of the public sector determines the trustworthiness and effectiveness of a state and has a significant effect on other sectors within it. As a result, the organisation of budgeting continues to remain a subject for topical discussion. Different budgeting methods have their respective strengths and weaknesses: if the mathematical time sets method is suitable for financial managers then the result-based verbal method is much more suitable for politicians. The price of realising these methods is also very different.
The autonomy of parliaments means organisational, functional, administrative and financial autonomy. Legally, the principle of the parliaments' autonomy is contained within the constitution of a state.
The decision taken by the European Supreme Assembly in Cologne, in 1999 - to create the Charter of Basic Rights of the European Union (hereafter the Charter) - has been implemented today. The Charter was prepared in less than a year. Such a pace reminds one of Estonia, where in the course of the legal system reform, acts had to be written several times faster than in countries with a long tradition of democracy. The European Union (EU) neither can nor wishes to be left behind in general developments or to prevent expansion. In addition to the speed, the preparation of the Charter has been characterised by democracy and transparency. In the process of creating the Charter, interest was also shown towards the opinions of candidate states.1
At the initiative of Germany, an assembly was formed at the summit meeting of the European Union (EU) in 1999, in Cologne. Its aim was to develop a draft of the Charter of Basic Rights of the EU, and to present it at the summit meeting of the EU in Nice, in December 2000.
The article will analyse the ethical, institutional, social, economic and ecological basis for Estonia's ability to continue its existence on the basis of existing literature. The results permit us to claim that Estonia has an average, or relatively good ethical, institutional and social basis for the building of a society that is able to continue its existence.
The article discusses the peculiarities, factors and impacts of politics as a regulatory mechanism in society. The author explores the preconditions, risks and possibilities of politics as a voluntary and scientifically founded systematic activity.
In which areas of their activity do members of the Estonian Riigikogu focus most? How important do they rank the relations with their party as opposed to their voters, electoral district or private interest groups, and do these activities compete with or complement each other?
The author is convinced that diminishing the state’s role and improving the exercise of the remaining functions should take place simultaneously by areas of government and various fields. Fulfilling of the “core functions” should be reformed on the basis of principles that are in particular suitable for Estonia.
Many, if not most of the decision-makers, have developed certain understanding and beliefs in relation with the issues of the administrative reform. At the same time, their ideas have often developed without a deeper analysis.
The article aims to remind or inform the reader of the fact that there is no abstract ideal size of a local government unit and that even dwarf-size rural municipalities need not be ineffective. The central idea in determining the ideal size is rather the principle of suitability.
The article deals with the problems of Euro-debate in the Estonian media. In the context of EU negotiations and the possible accession, the Estonian means of mass communication have two different, but equally important tasks.
The article mainly analyses the political attitudes of the Estonian population on the basis of assessments in public opinion polls, as well as concrete participation in political activity. The central theoretical notions discussed in the article are specific and general political support, trust, and legitimacy of the power.
The social and market polling company Saar Poll has, since 1996, been carrying out a public opinion trend survey “The State and the People”, dealing with the problems related to the work of the Riigikogu. The survey has been conducted at the request of the Riigikogu Chancellery.
The aim of harmonising European civil law is to reduce differences between legal systems in order to guarantee a uniform European economic space and legal culture.
The necessity to reform the pension system becomes more pressing due to the ageing of the population. In relation with the pension system, one of the critical outputs of ageing is the decreasing of the workers-pensioners ratio, meaning the rise of the average number of people maintained by one worker.
Following up the article by Prof. Alari Purju, the author discusses public opinion towards a compulsory collecting pension.
The article provides a short overview of how the different phenomena treated under the notion of organised crime in Estonia could be classified, and to what extent indirect measures arising from more systematic economic legislation could help to combat smuggling and related organised crime.
The short article explores the current problems of the Estonian education policy within a wider public policy context. As education policy is one of the areas of public policy, the state welfare model and the main features of the administrative set-up of the state determine also the organisation and principles of the system of education.
The present article deals with the situation of rural schools, the forecast for the coming years and financing of schools from the state and local government budgets.
The article pays attention to the need for cooperation between all areas of fight against drug addiction, and sets out to compare the efficiency of this cooperation.
Estonia and Poland are linked through centuries-long good relations, sympathies and numerous mutual interests, which with their rises and setbacks have by today created not only a very good basis for cooperation on a new level (European Union and NATO), but also, already during the less than ten years that have passed since the reestablishment of Estonia’s independence Poland has become one of our most important partners.
In connection with the organisation of the Estonian legal system there is a proposal to regulate in future all private law contracts under law on obligations.
Max Weber, founder of the sociology of law, explicitly distinguished formal, procedural (how?) and material, substantive (what?) dimensions of law.
The article proceeds from a survey carried out by the Riigikogu Chancellery to study the opinions of participants in the law-making process regarding the use of social information in the legislative process and the ways of raising effectiveness of legislation with the help of that information.
The article describes the essence of the normative technique of law creation, its necessity and the problems of the normative technique that have arisen in the legislative process.
The article is based on a survey carried out in 1999 to analyse 156 draft laws submitted to the Riigikogu with respect to their conformity to the requirements of content of the legal acts regulating the legislative activities of the Riigikogu and the Government, and to the methods for the assessment of the impact of regulations in selected OECD countries.
As is characteristic for a society in transition, democratisation of the society causes conflicts connected to the political expectations of the population and realisation of those expectations.
The article presents some of the results of a survey ordered by the Riigikogu Chancellery which reflects the change in the credibility of the Parliament and the interest of the people in its activities.
There are 5581 non-profit associations in Estonia (as at 1.11.99). By fields of life, their number is the biggest in public, social and personal services (3268 associations), and in real estate, lease and business services (1962).
The Estonian Motor Vehicle Excise Tax Act was under attention already in 1998 with respect to its amendment. The aim of the amendment of the Act was to bring excise tax rates into dependence on the cost of the motor vehicle, and through the excise tax rates promote indirectly the procurement of newer, more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles. In this connection, an overview of the vehicle taxes in the EU member states was made.
Taking into consideration the producer and consumer subsidy equivalents in planning the future development directions of agricultural policy provides, in the opinion of the author, a sufficiently adequate picture of a comparative level of subsidies by product groups in Estonia.
Summaries of statistics of the first and second instance courts are compiled twice a year, in July and January, and the data is also published on the homepage of the Ministry of Justice.
2014 was the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the European Space Agency (ESA). In 2014, the accession negotiations of Estonia with the ESA will be concluded, and in 2015 Estonia may become a full-fledged member of the ESA.
Estonia is not a newcomer in space research. In the middle of the last century, the scientists from the Estonian Academy of Sciences and universities participated in several space programmes of the Soviet Union, but when Estonia restored its independence, this close cooperation was discontinued.
The new role of teachers in the rapidly changing times and learning environments led the authors to the idea of studying students’ opinions (n=972) on how they perceive relationships and teachers’ professionalism in everyday school practice.
Old Võromaa is a region of heritage culture that has managed to preserve its specific character and identity, several peculiar ancient traditions are still alive here and the Võro language is spoken in the region. The region forms a whole by its heritage culture, but the development potential of its culture and nature have until now been little used as a development advantage.
The role of Estonian NGOs in policy-making processes has become increasingly visible in recent years. Due to that the questions related to their internal democracy are gaining importance. A recent study by Praxis Center for Policy Studies explored how internal democracy in NGOs works and how the members are involved within NGOs to obtain input for policy-making. The article presents the main conclusions of that research.
Spending of public money is an issue that has always been of interest to the citizens. And they are also the ones who feel the results of decisions most clearly. Participatory budgeting has been implemented in order to involve the citizens in the drafting of local budget.
Squatting matches the need and the opportunity.
The Estonian Internet Community emerged as the result of the domain reform, and by today it is a 100-member publicly acknowledged organisation that has been active for nearly three years.
The article provides an overview of the civil initiative values, behaviour patterns, and evaluations of the civil society of the inhabitants of Estonia.
The purpose of social entrepreneurship is to satisfy an acute social need by the profit received from the sale of goods and services. It may also be said that social entrepreneurship is an instrument for increasing the viability and positive social impact of citizens’ associations.
The article deals with the background system, results and political recommendations of the idea project „Portrait of Citizens’ Society” (“Kodanikeühiskonna portree”, KYPO).
An ecovillage is an integrated and ecologically sustainable human community that can exist both in a city and in the country.
The article gives an overview of two recent studies on philanthropy in Estonia, one about volunteering and the other about charitable giving.
Standing advisory councils are a cooperation form with quite a long tradition for a country like Estonia; the first such advisory bodies were established already in the early 1990s.
People who live in rural areas find that the organisers of the life in Estonia and the decision-makers should more often go to rural municipalities and villages to see the circumstances and to listen to people, give advice on the spot and organise information days and trainings there.
The purpose of the article is to give an overview of the creation of the elections platform of the umbrella organisation, the Federation of Estonian Student Unions, communication with political parties during the Riigikogu campaign, and follow-up activities.
For Estonian non-profit associations, participation in the formation of the life of the society means for the most part acting at a local level and cooperation contacts with local governments and other non-profit associations.
The article is based on Marek Puust’s master thesis, “The Priorities of Funding Estonian Civil Society”, and recent developments in re-arranging the funding mechanisms for civil organizations in Estonia.
The article compares the goals of two national strategies – the Estonian Civil Society Development Conceptand an addition from this spring, the concept for restructuring state budgetary funding of civil society – with the views of ministries and representatives of the political elite.
By decision at the cabinet meeting, the Government of the Republic has approved the strategy, introduced by the Minister for Regional Affairs, for reorganizing the financing of civic associations from the state budget, the goal of which is to create a comprehensive system for state financing of civic associations.
Neighbourhood Watch, conceived in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, reached Estonia on 2 May 2000, when the first Neighbourhood Watch cooperative agreement was signed in the Nõmme district of Tallinn.
Open Space, a method articulated and implemented by the US management consultant Harrison Owen, is modelled on the spontaneous coffee breaks that take place at conferences, where anyone can join or leave a discussion, based on their interest.
Animal protectors who have joined the voluntary Estonian Society for the Protection of Animals worry not only about pets but the welfare of all animals, including wild animals and farm animals.
Unlike other Northern European countries, Estonia´s civic associations have not to this point been active in shaping alcohol policy and alleviating alcohol problems.
The Civic Society Endowment to be created on the basis of the initiative of voluntary associations will fill an important gap in the state financing of Estonian civic society, which to this point has not been very systematic.
A systematic overview of the Estonian public sector and citizen’s associations is lacking.
If we compare the opportunities afforded by the Estonian Civic Society Development Concept (Estonian acronym – EKAK), approved by the Riigikogu in 2002, to the development strategy entitled Sustainable Estonia 21, approved three years later by the same body, it should not be overlooked that the implementing mechanisms are very different.
The Estonian women's movement, whose traditions reach back to the century before last, started developing especially rapidly in the beginning of last century when Estonia became an independent democratic state. When independence was lost, all women's organizations stopped operating as well.
The Concept for the Development of Civil Society (EKAK) was adopted on 12 December 2002 after a long period of discussions.
Civics has been taught in Estonian general educational system since the very beginning of transition. Although a lot has been done, results are regarded mostly as dissatisfactory. According to the IEA CivEd Study Estonian students support neither conventional nor social movement citizenship model; they are below the international indicators almost at all attitudinal scales.
Disputes on whether the onus should be on civics class in school (in the field of civic education) have lost its point: civics has become everyone's common concern.
The article provides an overview of volunteer work in Estonia, highlights major problems and needs in developing volunteer work and offers ways of creating an environment favorable to volunteering through legal regulation, state policies and support systems.
In a situation where all democracies are suffering from alienation, lack of trust and low electoral turnout, it is natural that people are looking for new democratic instruments or reviving old ones.
Discussion on topics related to civic society, developing civic society and creating an environment favorable to civic initiative has in the last few years focused on the need for intersector cooperation and the forms of cooperation.
This article analyzes pan-European networks between civic associations, which cover the member states of the European Union and the global foreign policy field almost as densely as do government institutions.
The attitude that only they know what the needs of society are is prevalent among Estonian political parties. As a result, the state has not included citizens in finding solutions for the problems facing society - and civic society has been left almost completely in the domain of foreign capital and advisers.
Existing information provided by various information sources does not reflect the sector entirely, thus, making it difficult to determine the actual number of functioning organizations in it, as well as disallowing comparisons within Estonia or internationally.
The structure of civic associations includes both supportive and coordinating as well as developmental roles.
The network of Estonian non-profit organizations in ten regions in the country is now four years old.
Over the last few years, many influential international organizations have dealt with how to get citizens to take part in the political process: the UNDP, World Bank, OECD and the Open Society Institute.
As of November 1, 2002, there were 17,775 registered non-profit organizations in Estonia.
To help enshrine the principles of civil society in legislation, the Estonian Law Centre Foundation has launched a project, which lets ordinary citizens participate in the drafting of the most important.
Like our other social organisations, charity is still in an embryonic stage in Estonia.
On the Riigikogu's anniversary on 23 April 2001, a significant document - Conception of Development of the Estonian Civil Society (CDECS) - was submitted to the Board of the Riigikogu.
In choosing a strategy for the development of civil society and the third sector, Estonia will in fact take a decisive step in the embedding of its whole social model. Equating of the third sector with civil society ignores several important problems, which are connected to the general democratic tasks of a civil society's development.
The preparation of the Estonian Civil Society Development Concept (see http://www.ngo.ee) began in the early summer of 1999 with the aim of contributing to the development of a contemporary society of citizens and regulating the relations between the public and the non-profit sector.1
The article deals with problems related to the development of economic co-operation. The approximate calculations by the Estonian Co-operative Union indicate that 10-15 billion kroons worth of net profit is taken out of Estonia every year by transnational companies based on foreign capital, and as a rule this money is not reinvested.
Civil society has an increasingly important role to fulfil nowadays. Relations between the state and the third sector become increasingly more formal, different agreements and memorandums of cooperation are concluded.
The article describes, on the basis of a survey carried out among members of non-profit associations and a similar public opinion poll, the current situation and development possibilities of cooperation between the state, local authorities and non-profit organisations in Estonia.
A discussion on the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has been initiated in Estonia.
The author gives a short overview of this year’s annual conference of the International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) held on 5-8 July in Dublin, Ireland, on the topic “Third Sector: for Whom and for What?”
Six comments by bon-profit Associations on the Cooperation Memorandum of Estonian Political Parties and Third Sector Umbrella Organisations
Proceeding from the common interest to strengthen cooperation between the state and non-profit associations in shaping public policy and promoting participatory democracy in Estonia, and, the desire to provide, as equal partners, a contribution to the building of civil society which is an essential precondition for promoting public welfare and increasing competitiveness of the state, the political parties and non-profit associations of Estonia who are signatories to this Memorandum, consider it necessary to
Commentaries of the representatives of political parties represented in the Riigikogu on the Memorandum of Cooperation reflect almost the whole mosaic of the principles of cooperation between the public authorities, political parties and the third sector.
On 14 December 1999, by signing a cooperation memorandum, a cooperation assembly of Estonian political parties and non-profit associations was founded. The task of the assembly is to help through exchange of opinions to shape views of the both parties on long-term strategic goals of development in Estonia.
One may argue that civil society is best viewed as the process that moves society towards consensus in how to face the future.
The Estonian Law Centre has given its contribution for the development of participatory democracy in Estonia.
For the past two years, the Estonian delegation to the IPU has acted according to the following principle: each trip that an Estonian parliamentarian makes abroad should leave a positive trace, introduce Estonia, spread the knowledge that we are a small but good country, that our people are smart, and that Estonia is home to many good things that help make the world a better place. During the IPU Assembly in Uganda in 2012 and in Ecuador in 2013, the head of the Estonian delegation spoke of the „Let’s do it!” campaign that originated in Estonia and was first known in the world as Let’s do it World and is now known as World Cleanup. All the fifty thousand Estonian people who cleaned up Estonia within one Saturday in May 2008 can be proud of what has become of this Estonian campaign: as it spread to over 96 countries all over the world, Estonia became increasingly known as a successful and progressive country.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is a forum that unites the parliaments and politicians of its member states and primarily performs an advisory function.
The parliamentary cooperation of the three Baltic States Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the foundations of which were laid by the establishing of the Baltic Assembly in 1991 in Tallinn, has in two decades undergone several changes.
Members of parliament have more freedom in their positions than governments, therefore the best way for pursuing value-based foreign policy is through the parliamentary assemblies of large international organisations.
Piracy is a global problem which does not concern only the regions immediately related to piracy, and therefore fighting it requires serious international efforts.
A number of resistance groups arose in 1970s Czechoslovakia. Two of the groups contributed in one way or another to the restoration of Estonian independence.
The author, member of the 7th Riigikogu and Tallinn University professor emeritus recalls the at-large session of the non-member states committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (CEPA) held 23–27 October 1994 in St. Petersburg and Petseri.
The "first wave" of donor-sponsored anti-corruption programmes usefully focused on elaborating recommendations for parliamentarians or tried to train them (develop human capital) in anti-corruption.
*This paper was presented in 6th Workshop of Parliamentary Scholars and Parliamentarians, 31.07-01.08.2004, Wroxton College, UK. Policy Paper: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~scat1663/Publications/Presentations/Parliamentary%20Policy%20Brief.pdf
Even though Estonia's priority since independence was joining Euro-Atlantic structures, the West was fairly reticent about the idea in the very beginning.
The longer the global war on terrorism lasts, the more violence will be loosed.
Terrorism is not a one-generation probleem.
The research and info services of many European parliaments cooperate with libraries, the largest networks being the European Center for Parliamentary Research and Documentation (www.ecprd.org) and the International Federation of Library Association's (www.ifla.org) Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments.
Well-functioning parliamentary information services can make legislation more effective.
*The article is translated from the author’s paper “Knowledge and Power. The Essential Connection between Research and the Work of Legislature”, published by the European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation (ECPRD). Dick Toornstra, ECPRD, European Parliament 2002. Full text is available on the website of the ECPRD at www.ecprd.org
Every MP has things in his schedule that someone else could do for him or her but which are not in the job description of anyone working in the Riigikogu.
Estonia's attitude toward Russia after independence was characterized by an idealistic expectation - yet one firmly entrenched in the idea of continuity of statehood - that our great neighbor to the east would renew itself morally and that relations would rapidly normalize in the spirit of mutual reward and good-neighborliness.
Geographically and agriculturally well-endowed, Ukraine's fertile lands have been scarred by devastating wars and revolutions, which is why peace and peaceable solution of domestic and foreign problems is such an important value for the country.
At the 2000 summit in Nice, the EU's leaders laid the groundwork for the expansion of Europe with many necessary institutional changes. It was clear to all member states that it would be difficult to achieve unanimity and because of that expansion would be more difficult.
Grey zones in European security structure are reality insofar as Russia's interests extend far beyond its current borders, and are, as such, more important than the right of single nations to self-determination. If we want more security in Europe, we must recommend the eradication of the grey zones; and this is feasible, if we insist on pursuing a more organized state of affairs in Europe.
The Estonian Defence Forces recently celebrated their 10th anniversary. Now the Defence Forces may step into their second decade of existence with clear development on a qualitatively new level: the "Analysis of the Structure of the Defence Forces", based on the Partnership for Peace between the Republic of Estonia and the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation, has been completed, as has a document called "The Structure and Development Goals of the Defence Forces for a Medium-Term Period" which sets out the development goals of the Estonian Defence Forces up to the year 2015, relying on the structural analysis performed in 2001. The document was approved by the Government of the Republic on 6 November 2001.
The inter-parliamentary organisation GLOBE (Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment) was founded in 1989, in Washington, at the initiative of a then Member of the European Parliament, Hemmo Munthing.
The overview of the activities of the European Parliament has been compiled mainly on the basis of the information obtained from http://www.europarl.eu.int.
In his article, the author looks at the cooperation between Baltic states from its very beginning – the end of World War I, pointing out the possibility of the emergence of even five Baltic states, who would have included also Poland and Finland. Yet, actual Baltic cooperation was not born at that time because the above countries sensed their interests and risks too differently. As a result, in World War II they all had to pay a very high price. The author asks whether this was an inevitable fact.
The members of Riigikogu participate in seven international parliamentary organisations.
The first delegation of the Riigikogu was established in September 1991 shortly after the restoration of independence of Estonia. It had a special guest status until Estonia acceded to the Council of Europe in May 1993.
Informal or officially registered associations of former MPs are a widespread practice in the world. Gatherings of these associations are officially arranged in the form of annual meetings, but also series of lectures, visits within one’s own country and abroad may be organised.
Statistics of the activities of the VIII and IX compositions of the Riigikogu might be seen as a yardstick for the work accomplished by the Riigikogu. We learn that as a result of the work of the VIII Riigikogu 754 legal acts were adopted, of them 643 laws, 109 resolutions, and 2 statements. The overview contains a comparison of the IX and VIII Riigikogu during the same time period.
The necessity for an international comparison of remuneration and benefits of Members of Parliament has arisen from the work of drafting, amendment and revision of legal acts regulating the payment of the work of Members of Parliament. This overview is based on the data presented in Istanbul in 1996 at the conference of the Association of Secretary Generals of Parliaments.
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Parliament of Estonia the Riigikogu, the National Library of Estonia has published an e-publication of the biographies of the members of the 1st Riigikogu. The publication contains the biographies of all 168 persons who belonged to the 1st Riigikogu. The mandate of the first composition lasted from 20 December 1920 to 30 May 1923, and ten political party lists were elected to the parliament.
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Parliament of Estonia the Riigikogu, the National Library of Estonia has published an e-publication of the biographies of the members of the 1st Riigikogu.
The 120 members of the Constituent Assembly, who had been elected by the people, convened for the first time on 23 April 1919. This assembly and the Riigikogu elected on the last elections are united most of all by their faith and love towards the people of Estonia.
Riigikogu Toimetised is publishing part of the book by Jaak Valge Estonian Parliament 1917–1940. Political History, without citing the references. The book has already been edited and will be published shortly.
The exhibition “The Estonian Parliament 100” gives a brief overview of the hundred-year history of the representative body of Estonia. The exhibition is divided into two sections: 1917‒1940 and 1991‒2018, separated by a half a century break, when the representative body could not convene.
After a depressing Communist Party dictatorship, otherwise known as the Soviet era, the second national awakening began in Estonia on the second half of 1986. This short period brought along three hugely significant revolutions: restoration of national independence (revolution in statehood), building up of democracy (revolution in social structure) and substitution of planned economy with market economy (revolution in economy). Historians specialising in recent history, and the general public, have largely concentrated their interest in the first of these, i.e. the restoration of national independence. Even this has often been treated one-dimensionally, as a one-day event; in actual fact, the state building went on for years before the events of August 1991.
On 19 August 2013, the Chancellery of the Riigikogu and the National Library of Estonia presented a collection of articles on the 12th Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR that convened on 29 March 1990, continued as the Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia from 8 May 1990, and decided to dismiss itself on 14 September 1992.
Since 2004, the Chancellery of the Riigikogu in cooperation with the National Library of Estonia have been issuing collections on statistics concerning the activities of the Riigikogu.
The article describes the preparation of the draft of the Persons Repressed by Occupying Powers Act, forming of the government committee dealing with the problems of the repressed people and the passing of the Persons Repressed by Occupying Powers Act. The Act entered into force on 1 January 2004.
This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the day the Riigikogu Legal Protection Committee started its work after the restoration of the independence of Estonia.
This article is a direct continuation to the „A Trip from St. Petersburg to Pechory”, published in the Riigikogu Toimetised in 2005 (No. 12).
The author finds that Estonia was successful in the restoration of the state and the legal order in the years 1990–1992 and thereafter owing to several different circumstances.
“Women in the Parliament of Estonia, 1917–1940 and 1992–2010”, an electronic publication of the National Library of Estonia (www.nlib.ee/14889), gives an overview of the activities of women in legislative bodies (in different periods of history this body has had different names – Provisional Assembly of the Governorate of Estonia, Constituent Assembly of Estonia, Riigikogu, Rahvuskogu).
In foreign relations, the competency of Estonian parliament as a legislative body can be thought of as consisting of two elements. First, legal competence of parliament, which is set forth in the Constitution and legislation and international legal acts governing foreign relations (conventions, treaties, operating principles of international organizations), and political competence, which develops through the distribution of functions between government agencies.
In the War of Independence, Estonia’s Bolsheviks had been part of the Russian Communist (Bolshevik) Party.
The writer stresses that the primary framer of the decisions to restore Estonian independence was the Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia, elected in March 1990 as the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR, for the first time on democratic grounds, which played a decisive role in shaping the state’s foreign policy and promoting international ties and seeking diplomatic recognition.
The last century placed Estonia repeatedly in front of difficult decisions.
Although only a few westerners truly explore the depths of the Tibetan culture, its effect on western thinking is remarkable.
As a persona, Boris Yeltsin was unique and indispensable. In his personal recollections, the writer deals with only the few episodes when his and Yeltsin´s very different paths unexpectedly crossed or even converged.
Even though it seemed, after the Eesti Pank Act was adopted in 1993, that the central bank was guaranteed for all time the ability to follow an independent monetary policy free of the government, this sense of security proved premature.
The writer recalls the strong opposition that developed between financial experts and the Ministry of Justice in the early 1990s, when the central bank was in the process of drafting a new draft legislative act on Eesti Pank, the central bank.
From his first days as an MP, the writer of this article studied how to launch proceedings as quickly as possible on an act to prevent corruption.
Part II of the article (part I was published in The Riigikogu Toimetised No. 11) provides an overview of the work of legislators of the 7th, 8th and 9th Riigikogu in regulating state revenue and expenditures, environmental protection and promoting market economy relations, also in developing enterprise and economic reforms, resolving social and cultural issues and managing the country's international relations.
The article provides an overview of the legislative work of the 7th, 8th and 9th composition of the Riigikogu in restoring and strengthening Estonia's sovereignty, developing fundamental civic rights and setting forth the prerequisites for the state's transition to a market economy.
The author, a former member of parliament, recalls the trips of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe non-member states committee to a session in A lbania from 6–10 September 1993 and the Greek peacekeeping organization KEADEA as well as to the European Conference on Peace, Democracy and Cooperation in the Balkans organized by Russian and Balkan peace committees in Greece from 10–16 November 1993.
In the early 2002, the Riigikogu secretariat organized a competition for preparatory school students - collecting memories from MPs in the 7th Riigikogu. Even though only 12 works were received, they proved that there was enough interesting material to go around.
The 9th Riigikogu closed for business, as it were, on February 13, 2003, having passed 881 acts of law, joined by two acts passed at extraordinary session on February 25 - a constitutional amendment and the appointment of the Auditor General - bringing the total to 883 (771 laws, 110 decisions, 1 proclamation and 1 appeal).
From March 1994 to July 1995, four Estonian party summits took place at the behest of the Centre Party. Two were followed by continued meetings where unfinished business was discussed, and by the work of various work groups. The summit, planned as an extraordinary event, gave rise to a tradition of summits over a period of 18 months or so. Since July 1995, there have not been as many well-attended summits, though subsequent years have seen a number of roundtables held in various forms and levels.
The idea of judicial constitutional review in Estonia has a long history of maturing and realisation. As an important issue of political life, it has enjoyed lively discussions and debates in the course of elaboration of independent Estonia's constitutions.
With the 1938 Constitution, Estonia attained a two-chamber parliament consisting of a State Assembly (Riigivolikogu) and a State Council (Riiginõukogu). Its term was five years. The State Assembly was a house of deputies that had 80 members elected from a list of names on the basis of relative majority, from one-mandate constituencies. It adopted laws, approved the state budget and controlled the Government. The State Council was the passive house of the Parliament. It did not have the right to make law by itself, as all legal acts only became law after being reviewed by the State Assembly.
The first Constitution of the Republic of Estonia was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 15 June 1920. According to the Constitution, the supreme body was the parliament (the Riigikogu); no position of Head of State (the President) was provided.
In 1925, from 12-22 May, the parliamentary delegation of the Estonian Riigikogu, led by August Jürman, the deputy chairman of the board of the II Riigikogu, visited the Polish Sejm.
In the life of the Estonian Parliament, an important change has taken place in 2000 – the Government of the Republic moved out of the Toompea castle into a building at Rahukohtu 3 on Toompea Hill, and thus the separation of legislative and executive power has been effected also on the physical and geographical level.
On 23 April 1919, the democratically elected parliament of the Republic of Estonia – the Estonian Constituent Assembly – began its work.
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has disrupted the order of international rela-tions that developed after the Second World War. For the first time since 1945, an open conventional war is once again raging in Europe.
The election programmes of political parties are voluminous, and many promises are made before elections. The author of the article investigated which words ap-peared most often in the election programmes, and in which contexts.
The article strives to give a historical overview of the main conflicts of dif-ferent elections in Estonia and tries to elaborate on the peculiarities of the last election campaign.
Tallinn University of Technology uses three key levers to take our teaching to the top European level.
When we consider the development of higher education and research in Estonia, or the social and economic development in general, we depend directly on well-educated people who develop new solutions and increase the added value produced in the country.
Today, an important role in economy is played by such sectors as energy, ICT, construction, industry, etc., that cannot function without an increase in the number of suitably educated young people. Without engineers, it will be impossible to achieve climate mitigation goals.
The importance of the Riigikogu Building (built in 1920–1922) in the history and architecture of Estonia in the 20th century cannot be overestimated.
The strategic branches of the contacts between the science landscape and the state are the (national) policy for science and science for policy.
The Academy of Security Sciences is the starting point of Estonia’s security. It is a school for hopeful or already active rescue officers, rescue organisers, police officers, prison or customs officers, or researchers in the field.
The public administration study of OSKA, the system of forecasting future needs for labour and skills, analysed the need for labour force and skills in state agencies, local governments, organisations of entrepreneurs and employers, occupational organisations and trade unions until 2027, and submitted proposals to the education system.
Due to the increasing demand and shortage of resources, the coming years will be characterised by discussions on the sustainability of financing and sufficiency of the financed service package in health care.
While the spread of the COVID-19 virus in Estonia in 2020 was not so extensive as in most European Union Member States and the economic restrictions were milder, the labour market reacted to the crisis rather strongly. After the first wave of the coronavirus crisis, mainly the young people were hit the hardest on the labour market. If the virus crisis lasts longer and influences most sectors of economy, the labour market position of older workers may also suffer.
In Estonia, there are several areas of concern relating to health that require the improvement of healthcare, at the same time, however, changes in the behaviour of people towards the emergence of a healthier self is even more important.
Toompea Castle in Tallinn, the historical small fortress, consists of several buildings dating from different periods. However, one magnificent representative building has been almost completely destroyed.
The most important room in the Government Building of the Province of Estonia or Toompea Palace, which was built during the reign of Catherine II 250 years ago, is the White Hall.
The article discusses the legal responsibility of assistant police officer and the supervision exercised over their activities.
In recent years, the issue of forest management has been under serious scrutiny of the community.
The EU Information Centre (EUIC) opened in the National Library in 1998 to provide information about the EU.
Oil shale is a resource that has given energy independence and security to Estonia. Oil shale has also been an excellent object of research that has helped Estonian researchers engage in high-level top science, and in a number of cases has also helped a researcher achieve the status of academician, for example.
For the past ten years, Statistics Estonia has been preparing for the next population and housing census to be register based. In the ever-changing contemporary society, register-based census allows the government to constantly monitor its most important resource, the population, and to evaluate it quickly and from various aspects.
Since the first constitutional elections in 1992, the number of political parties in the Riigikogu has shown a relatively clear trend towards decrease – of nine political parties in 1992, five have remained in 2019.
This paper gives an overview of the results of cohesion policy investments in RTDI and enterprise in Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU after 2004.
* Serbanica, C., Constantin, D. L. (2018). EU Cohesion Policy and Innovation Support in Central and Eastern Europe: A Critical Review. – CESifo FORUM, 19(1), 24–31.
“How do you know it?” is a simple question. Answering it might turn out to be more complicated, requiring comprehensive knowledge of the scientific literature on the topic.
The article outlines the principles of contemporary research career models together with descriptions of their chief elements, modifications in the recent past, and known bottlenecks. An optimal research career model is found to be one of the cornerstones of a knowledge-based society. Ideally, it is also a transfer mechanism of researchers’ capacity into practices meeting societal needs in the best possible way. The conceptual framework, recommended basic principles, as well as possible proportions of models suitable for Estonia are discussed.
* Peer-reviewed article
The Estonian labour market is not ready for the coming of new economy. Labour market is shaped by legislation, employment mediation institutions, and the parties of work process with their attitudes, expectations and qualifications. In this article, new economy means ensuring high quality of life by spending as little resources as possible, increasing the value of human labour, and spreading of corporate responsibility, sharing economy, flexible working, and smart and individual work. The preconditions for new economy are robotisation, artificial intelligence and smart solutions in the whole economy.
The broader purpose of the article is to analyse various methodological approaches on how to assess the comprehensive impact of universities on economy quantitatively or semi-quantitatively. Earlier studies conducted all over the world, implemented practices and recommendations of international organisations are used as a basis.
* This article was written as a result of the project “The Impact of Universities on the Development of Economy: Setting the Initial Task and Development of Methodology”, financed from the development fund of the University of Tartu.
Top-level research is necessary for a small country like Estonia in order to ensure cooperation with research institutions abroad, export innovative products and promote the society here.
The article provides an overview of the main principles of foresight. These are: focus on actions, involvement of interested parties, a range of future scenarios, as well as disciplinary and methodologic variety. The authors stress that foresight differs from forecasts, as it is impossible to predict the future and the future is not predetermined, but can be shaped by the combined influence of today’s actions and decisions. Consequently, the aim of foresight is not to propose a single outcome, but to create different future scenarios together with the decision-makers and experts. Taking those into account, the decision-makers can influence future developments.
In the world that is changing at an increasing speed and due to ever more complex problems, the importance of science is growing.
When collecting data, the following principles must be kept in mind: an authority may collect data only for the performance of its functions and only to the extent minimally necessary; once data has been collected, it may not be asked in duplication; data must be protected, and they must be used securely. When an authority collects, systematises, processes and preserves data for the performance of a public function, this is maintenance of a database. The National Audit Office found that local governments collect data into hundreds of databases, the majority of which have not passed even the primary control and do not use the technical possibilities to exchange data securely. Databases must be registered in the Information System Authority (databases are registered in the Administration System for the State Information System, hereinafter “RIHA”). The aim of the registration with RIHA is to support the co-capability of databases and to monitor their compliance with the requirements.
The legislation must take into account the changing nature of the society.
At the beginning of 2014, the Riigikogu passed the Apartment Ownership and Apartment Associations Act, which was prepared in the Ministry of Justice and passed several rounds of coordination.
In 2018, one hundred years have passed since the establishing of the Republic of Estonia. It is without doubt the most important anniversary in the history of the country, and it concerns all people who live in Estonia. At the time when the society is split by world-view issues, the global security situation has become tense and economic insecurity grows, celebrating an anniversary gives the country and its people a good opportunity to find again their common ground, to tell the story of sovereignty in a modern language, to initiate new activities with future perspective, to enhance belief in oneself and in one’s country.
In the globalising and increasingly knowledge-based economy, higher education institutions (HEI) are becoming ever more important in transferring, sharing and applying knowledge and skills. Regional HEIs may function as global pipelines, gathering knowledge from around the world and creating a buzz by translating, adapting and spreading this knowledge; all this is creating a forum for discussing crucial developments of regional strategies.
With the Natural Resources Strategy, Estonia has set itself the aim to get more added value from its natural resources, using as an example the natural resources strategies of Finland, Sweden and other countries. The situation of Estonia is unique because we know of several natural resources with significant economic potential that the state has not seriously studied after the restoration of independence. The state has also contributed rather little to the studying of other natural resources. The problems of the oil shale sector are a serious challenge that are accompanied by social and economic challenges. Construction materials and peat have problems of their own that have to be solved, taking into account the social, economic and environmental aspects. A dynamic country constantly has to adapt to the changing circumstances.
The economic potential of Estonian geology and mineral resources is much greater than is put to good use daily. One obstacle has been the inadequate organisation of geological research and survey.
German law has been an important example in the formation of the modern Estonian civil law. However, the German legal regulations have not been mechanically copied, they have also been amended, taking into account the peculiarities of Estonia. It still seems that the in some cases the reasons for changes are not clear. For example, there are questionable moments in the legal regulation of expiry of the limitation period and unjustified enrichment, which complicate the understanding of these issues.
For several years, Middle Eastern Islamic states have been in the grips of a devastating war, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, and forced millions of men, women and children to flee their homes. Last year, the conflict reached Europe in the shape of 1.3 million illegal immigrants, and Islamic State terrorists.
The article gives an overview of the activities of the European Social Survey in Estonia in 2004–2015.
The correlation between the quantitative and qualitative indicators of legislation has been in the focus of attention of Estonian politicians for a long time. Quantitative indicators were considered a priority in legislative activities during the period when Estonia was preparing for the membership of the European Union.
The national strategy for sustainable development “Sustainable Estonia 21”, approved by the Riigikogu in 2005, determines how Estonia has planned to contribute to the sustainability of development. The trends of the indicators of sustainable development reflct how the strategy has been implemented in Estonia.
Self-regulation of the press is important to the consumers of the media, so that they could interfere in the case of the errors of the journalists. The principles and bodies of self-regulation have been created by the media itself, among other things, they include the Code of Press Ethics and the bodies that monitor the observance of the rules and the Code.
The main purpose of the European Union state aid regulations is to guarantee free and undistorted competition, therefore granting of state aid is usually disapproved. Only a few exceptions are allowed, which should ensure greater common interest and security.
The family policy of the small transition society of Estonia is far from a new Nordic country of our dreams. Within the framework of the developing market economy and the changes underway in its stratifiation system, the understandings of family prevailing in the society have taken unusual forms that are not similar to either those of the Nordic countries or those the old Europe.
Green economy is an economic model that promotes sustainable use of resources for increasing wealth.
On 19 June 1925, the Riigikogu passed the law that established the coat of arms of the Republic of Estonia. This was preceded by more than seven years of looking for the symbol of the state, and stormy exchange of ideas at debates and in the press.
The studies commissioned by the state, particularly in the social sphere, have a special place in the process of shaping knowledge-based decisions and evidencebased policies.
Every event has a time in which it is remembered. The idea for an exhibition (total of 1,823 pictures!) and the recognition of political caricatures of major Estonian newspapers in 2000, was in the first issue of Riigikogu Toimetised [Journal of Estonian Parliament] together with 44 caricatures from the period of 1907-1999.1
The editor-in-chief’s hobby-story “Estonian Political Caricature: from Gentle Humour to Biting Satire” begins with a motto by University of Tartu Professor Harald Peep: Humour is said to be very democratic. No one can either be forced to laugh or prohibited from laughing.
The statistics collection of the 13th Riigikogu was published in 2019. Its Editor-in-Chief – the Deputy Secretary General of the Riigikogu – writes about the five statistics collections of the 7th to 13th Riigikogu, outlining their content and pointing out how these reflect the changes in the work of the Riigikogu.
This autumn 25 years passed from the day the Supreme Council of the Estonian SSR restored the status of the Estonian National Library as the parliamentary library, and together with it, its honourable task to provide information services to the parliament and the government.
Cultural heritage being formed now is partly digital and a portion of it is published on the web only.
The National Archives of Estonia is the main public institution that preserves archival documents. The Digital Archives of the National Archives has to deal with all kinds of digital archival records.
Europeana (www.europeana.eu) is a digital library, museum and archive that realises the aim of European memory institutions to make the rich and diverse culture of this part of the world available to everybody.
Last year can be considered the successful beginning of the production of Estonian e-books. The article gives an overview of what an e-book is and where it is possible to get it.
It may be said that the book “Mitme tule vahel” ((“Between Many Fires”), Tartu, 2011), compiled by Lehte Hainsalu and Rein Järlik, is an undertaking that deserves extreme grati-tude and has a permanent value that cannot yet be fully understood.
The XI Riigikogu finished its work in spring 2011. Since the VII Riigikogu, the Chancellery of the Riigikogu in cooperation with the National Library of Estonia has recorded the most important activities of our parliament in a statistics collection.
Estonia made its first official step towards OECD in 1996, when the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the three Baltic states sent a joint declaration to the OECD, in which they proposed to establish the Baltic Regional Programme.
Since the number of social network users has mushroomed in recent years, parliaments, including the Riigikogu, can no longer ignore them.
Libraries and their users inevitably face the issue of copyright because a large number of documents in collections are copyright protected.
The Year of Reading is a suitable time to speak about books, companions for us all, in most different ways.
As of 2004, lending allowance is paid to authors and holders of copyright in Estonia for their books being lent from public libraries.
The article gives an overview of new technologies and possibilities of information search.
On 2 January 2009 the new database of Estonia articles, Index Scriptorum Estoniae (ISE), at http://ise.elnet.ee was opened to users.
For most of its history, the National Library of Estonia, which marks its 90th anniversary, has played a leading role in the research and development activities of Estonian libraries.
The writer of this article was responsible for shaping the content of the newspaper Postimees for many long years. Her current position as information specialist with the Estonian National Library allows her to view the process from the other side – compiling bibliographies of articles and helping library users find the information they need on particular topics.
In most countries, including Finland, the library of parliament is in the jurisdiction of the parliament, but in Estonia these functions are performed by the National Library.
The article argues that the Estonian EU information network should be updated in order to create synergy between information networks coordinated by Estonia and the EU.
The goal of the national research information system was to consolidate Estonian R&D databases into one body of knowledge.
The central question when it comes to the integration of European Union member states is how to preserve the special national and cultural character of each member in such a diverse body and bind them into a whole, creating a united European identity.
Estonia's ESTLEX legal information system marked its 15 th anniversary in 2006.
In scholarly communication, electronic periodicals and databases are pushing aside traditional print periodicals and monographs.
The humanities, or liberal arts, have traditionally been associated with the classic library in the form developed over the centuries, which can be seen as an archive of publications. Such a body of text essentially represents the cultural memory of a school of thought, reflecting its interests and its choices.
Parliamentary libraries today operate in environments of information overload, multiplying information channels and rapidly changing information technology. Do parliamentary clients need a service which promises more information to add to their load? What place for libraries in the new technologies? Has a service model which added value in Babylon still got something to add?
Being responsible for its quality, comprehensiveness and availability has been the primary task of academic libraries ever since they were established.
The article deals with the role of libraries in the information society, both theoretically and in the real-life politics of the European Union and Estonia.
Many public sector institutions act as publishing bodies. They create, edit and distribute printed publications.
Since 1945, politicians, scientists, entrepreneurs and students meet annually each other in Alpbach, Austria´s most beautiful village, where the European Forum and Summer School on European Integration take place.
The idea of selecting the year's best political cartoons and assembling a traveling exhibition was born in 1999, when Riigikogu chancellery began planning the setting up of the Journal of Estonian Parliament, Riigikogu Toimetised.
Electronic coverage of the relationship between European laws and member country laws has been a priority field in developing of the jurisprudential databases in member states as well as the EU level.
Translating EU legal acts is one of Estonia's obligations before acceding to the EU. This work is rightly part of a larger assignment: candidate states must assume the acquis communautaire of the Union, which in layman's terms means bringing all of its laws into conformance with the union's legal acts and being prepared to apply them immediately after accession.
The National Library has been the EU's depository library since April 1992.
May 14 of this year marked ten years since Estonia was approved as the 27th member of the CE. The CE, founded in 1949 by 10 countries, is a continually changing organization with a membership that has grown from 26 to 45 over the last ten years. According to its statutes, the organization is charged with achieving greater unity between its members, foremost through acknowledging common values (pluralistic democracy, human rights and the paramount position of the rule of law) and through practical cooperation. The CE has had a notable role in standardizing legislation in European countries.
The article discusses the National Library of Estonia's creation of a directory of Internet resources organized by subject and presents an overview of economic, political and law links.
The article gives a short overview of law volumes on the constitution. Under examination are monographs and articles from law periodicals (primarily Juridica).
The article gives an overview of the legislative body as a special type of information consumer.
This article is an overview of the activities of the Estonian National Library as a parliamentary library culling and creating databases.
The utilisation of electronic databases, and the awareness of different choices, not only improves the work of the parliament, and thereby its efficiency, but also enables it to offer better services and higher quality to citizens. The article describes the peculiarities of the parliament, an information-based organisation, in determining the criteria for its databases. Most attention is paid to external electronic databases, and the decision-making principles based on the content of these databases in a parliamentary information-based environment.
Three libraries mediate publications of international organisations in Estonia.
This is an introduction to publications compiled by the National Library, which reflect the activities of the Riigikogu or are necessary for parliamentary service, in comparison with similar publications in the Nordic countries.
This year the Parliamentary Information Centre of the National Library began to collect data about the graduation theses defended on the topics of law in Estonian higher educational institutions and creating a relevant database.
The Internet, which is one of the most important sources of information today, is a quick and convenient means for political parties to introduce themselves.
The National Library of Estonia has a nine years experience of creating and using bibliographical databases. By now there are more than 40 different databases in the National Library. The article gives an overview of three of them: Majpol, Varia, and Õigus. These databases are mostly used by the Parliamentary Information Centre.
In law-making there can often arise a need for information on social problems. Such information can be obtained from the Estonian Social Science Data Archive (ESSDA) in Tartu. ESSDA is an interdisciplinary centre at the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Tartu which also functions as a national archive of social sciences. ESSDA’s aim is to guarantee the maintenance and use of social information gathered in Estonia and about the Estonian society, as well as integrate Estonian social scientists into international social information networks.