The Riigikogu amended Estonia’s positions on strengthening Europe’s defence readiness

According to the Chairman of the European Union Affairs Committee Peeter Tali, Estonia’s positions reinforce the will to decisively increase Europe’s defence readiness. “Estonia’s positions are based on the report by former President of Finland Sauli Niinistö and strongly support the actions of the European Union and its Member States to strengthen Europe’s civil and military preparedness. Cooperation with NATO is important for defence readiness and crisis resilience, but at the same time the European Union must avoid duplicating NATO and clearly take into account and support NATO’s collective defence needs,” Tali said.

“The development of the vital infrastructure for north-south connections, or completing the construction of the Rail Baltic railway and the Via Baltica road, has an important and time-critical key role in strengthening Europe’s civilian and military readiness. At present, Latvia, Estonia and Finland are like island states in terms of connections.”

It was pointed out at the sitting that the exchange of information and the presentation of the threat picture to decision-makers should be promoted. The EU leaders have a sense of security, but it still takes too much work and too much time to implement ideas in the Member States. Estonia believes that it is necessary to give additional impetus to various initiatives by providing guidelines to the new European Commission.

The issue of increasing crisis resilience was also addressed at the sitting. It was pointed out that military as well as hybrid, climate and pandemics threats need to be taken into account. The European Union Affairs Committee noted that it was important to deal with the prepositioning of stocks and the acquisition of the resources necessary for coping in different crises. The positions underline that it must be possible to use the EU’s common civil protection and rescue capabilities in the event of a military emergency, and that this threat must be taken into account in the prepositioning of stocks.

As regards critical and vital underwater infrastructure, the need to strengthen Estonia’s ability to respond quickly to disruptions, as well as to detain vessels that have caused damage, was highlighted. Estonia’s positions also underline the need to create a system in the European Union that would enable to rapidly repair the underwater infrastructure.

Estonia supports the actions that strengthen the EU’s readiness to prevent subversion and sabotage by hostile third countries, make it more difficult to carry out such operations, and enhance punishing for and political attribution of such activities.

The European Union Affairs Committee decided to amend Estonia’s positions and to highlight the importance of Rail Baltic and Via Baltica. Estonia believes that the promotion and financing of military mobility, both by railway and by road, plays an important role in increasing the European Union’s defence readiness.

The Committee also added a position according to which it is necessary to speed up and enhance the cooperation between Member States in order to harmonise approaches to prosecuting the owners of vessels that have damaged underwater infrastructure and compensating for the damage caused.

The positions of the Government regarding strengthening Europe’s civilian and military readiness were presented by National Security and Defence Coordination Director of the Government Office Erkki Tori and Director for European Union Affairs at the Government Office Katrin Juhandi.

Riigikogu Press Service
Merilin Kruuse
+372 631 6592; +372 510 6179
merilin.kruuse@riigikogu.ee
Questions: press@riigikogu.ee

Link uudisele: The Riigikogu amended Estonia’s positions on strengthening Europe’s defence readiness

Source: Parliament of Estonia