NordenBladet – On Monday, the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) opened an exhibition with 34 final projects of recent bachelor’s and master’s degree students highlighted.
EKA’s final project festival TASE, where students can present their final projects, traditionally takes place in spring but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the festival was conducted virtually.
According to Pire Sova, organizer of TASE20, students still found it important to be able to present their art in its physical form.
Sova said: “[The students] really wanted to have a physical exhibition and that is partly the reason this exhibition was realized. Art is created in the physical space and meeting face-to-face in this room is very important. Especially since we have very strong painters this year and you can’t view their art from a small screen, especially if the painting is larger than you and you can’t see what the colors actually look like.”
NordenBladet – Artist Flo Kasearu’s exhibition “Eriolukord” (State of Emergency) opened in Tallinn’s KUMU art museum on Tuesday. The exhibition looks at how the organization of work changed in the gallery during the coronavirus crisis.
During the coronavirus crisis, employees at KUMU had the idea to observe their changing lives when the museum was closed to the public, ETV current news show “Aktuaalne kaamera” reported on Tuesday.
The museum invited artist Flo Kasearu to capture the situation and she documented staff member’s new daily routines.
For the stars of the show, the idea of being in front of the camera was sometimes unfamiliar. The women are satisfied with the end result and say that they will have a beautiful memory of the after of the exhibition has ended.
”When I look at this result, people were in ignorance. I don’t think of it looking at myself, but looking at one side and the other side and behind you, you didn’t know what was coming. And maybe corona was like a reed, not knowing where to go or what to do,” KUMU’s employee Merli said, speaking about being in the middle of the crisis.
KUMU’s employee Ivi added: ”When I look at these movies now, I remembered that I wanted to work so hard, but I couldn’t, I had to come to terms with these disabilities and imagine that they were my museum visitors.”
NordenBladet —The Riigikogu delegation to PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) joined the like-minded members of the Assembly in their statement on Belarus.
“As it stands, Alexander Lukashenko should do everything in his power to put an end to violence against political prisoners, and his resignation would be welcome news. It is impossible to imagine how he could continue after the Belarus elite as well as the working people have expressed their will,” said the head of the delegation Maria Jufereva-Skuratovski. She added that the Estonian delegation supports the holding of new transparent elections.
The statement says that the organisation of voting and vote counting at the presidential elections in Belarus did not respect international election standards or reflect the free will of the Belarus nation. The statement condemns the use of violence against the participants of peaceful demonstrations, and calls on the Belarus authorities to immediately release all the illegally detained individuals. Delegates to PACE encourage the parties to open a peaceful dialogue, and affirm their readiness to offer a platform for negotiations. The statement warns the Russian Federation against intervening in the internal affairs of Belarus.
Members of the Riigikogu delegation to PACE Raimond Kaljulaid, Eerik-Niiles Kross, Urmas Reitelmann, Raivo Tamm, and Vilja Toomast joined the statement.
At its extraordinary sitting today, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) discussed the situation in Belarus after the presidential elections held on 9 August and adopted a Statement on the Belarusian elections.
“Serious evidence indicates that the results of the presidential elections in Belarus were grossly falsified. Therefore the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament of the Republic of Estonia cannot consider the officially declared election result as legitimate,” the Statement says.
The Foreign Affairs Committee will continue the discussion of this topic on Tuesday, 18 August.
Before the Statement was adopted, diplomat of the Estonian Embassy in Belarus Kalvi Noormägi told the Committee about the situation in Belarus. Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Reinsalu gave the Committee an overview of Estonia’s positions at the informal video conference of the foreign affairs ministers of the European Union on 14 August, which will address the presidential elections in Belarus and the situation in Eastern Mediterranean.
NordenBladet — In their Joint Statement, the Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committees of the Parliaments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland call on the Belarusian authorities to release all political prisoners as well as those illegitimately detained in recent days, and to initiate a social dialogue for the much-expected changes.
“We follow with regret the events in Belarus and the repressions against the citizens and media there during the presidential elections,” Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) Enn Eesmaa said. “By depriving the citizens of the right to free elections, the general standards of democracy and human rights are ignored. With colleagues, we condemn such activities and underline that we are consistently ready to support the well-being of Belarusian society as well as the sovereignty of the Belarusian state,” Eesmaa said.
The Joint Statement of the Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committees points out that the right of free election is a fundamental value of democracy, and freedom of speech and assembly are among the fundamental human rights. “The activities that we are observing do not fit within the democratic standards,” the Statement says.
“We are convinced that following the path of dialogue and reforms will contribute to the development of Belarus, further deepening of good-neighbourly relations between Belarus and the countries of our region, as well as the revival of fruitful relations with the European Union. We are ready to support these efforts by seeking constructive solutions for our common future,” the Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committees emphasise in their Joint Statement.
Full text of the Statement of the Chairmen of the Foreign Affairs Committees.
NordenBladet —The COVID-19 pandemic, which is re-emerging, is causing concern for cultural and sports organisers. The experience in the spring, when the value chains of many sectors simultaneously ceased to function overnight, is still very fresh in our minds. And the recovery has yet to be completed, even under the restrictions that continue to apply.
The crisis package provided by the Ministry of Culture to ensure that cultural and sports institutions could continue their work and hold events totalled €25 million. With the supplementary budget, we tried to ensure the sustainability of cultural organisations, and to cover their essential costs. We needed to support unemployed freelance creative people, coaches and leaders of folk culture groups.
There has been a great deal of discussion and argumentation regarding whom the aid package should definitely reach. At the same time, the cultural organisers had to keep their heads above water, look for new innovative solutions for reaching their audience, in order to survive. After all, the state budget cannot pay for one’s entire future. And in the digital age, these new approaches have been well received by the public. New innovative ways of working have been introduced and entire new online environments have been developed.
From the outset, it was clear to the Ministry of Culture that the criterion for the distribution of crisis aid, for example, in the case of institutions, could not be based only their form of ownership or administrative jurisdiction. Culture is created everywhere. The impact of some smaller events on a community or on the economic life of a region as a whole can be extremely significant. And yet, choices had to be made, since those in need included both cultural organisations set up by the state, and at the other end of the scale, freelance creative people, such as musicians, actors, artists composer and writers. The former received around €20 million in support, the latter €5 million, with the government increasing its budget for creative people several times after the true scale of the crisis became apparent.
I would hereby like to thank our creative associations for their extremely fast action and smooth cooperation in processing the creative grants and delivering them to the applicants. I would also like to thank the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, whose endowments responded quickly and also allocated their own activity-scholarships.
The crisis package grants have now been disbursed. The preparation of these kinds of measures was a first for Estonia. Despite intense and sometimes pointed exchange of views with the representatives of different areas of activity, all the needs could still not be foreseen. Sensing the budgetary limits, we had to start rather conservatively. Thus, in some areas a surplus developed, which could partially be expected.
This money – and we are talking about €2.5 million – will not be lost to culture and sport. In the near future, the Ministry of Culture will announce additional funding rounds. One of them will definitely deal with the field of folk culture. Excluded from the initial appropriation were the makers and preservers of national handicrafts, as well as our community centres, i.e. the gathering places of community cultural life. In addition, we want to provide additional support to the organisers of large musical events, for whom financial uncertainty is particularly high due to the cancelled events. We can provide even stronger support for our film industry, the different sectors of which employ people from all walks of life, and not to mention the importance of the international dimension of filmmaking. The exact terms of the new funding rounds will be worked out and the applicants will be informed in a timely manner.
In addition to the aforementioned €25 million, the state also supported the home delivery of publications, and especially county newspapers, as well as helped sports clubs pay for the maintenance of sports infrastructure. The VAT on publications, as well as digital books, was reduced from 20% to 9%. The Ministry of Culture will initiate a similar tax reduction on concert tickets, in order to help safeguard Estonian concert activity, which is in strong competition with Riga and Helsinki.
The crisis had been kind of a paradoxical. And although the lockdown was so complete in the spring, that at times it seemed that even the birds were not flying, these weeks and months have been exceptionally intensive for both cultural institutions and organisers, as well as the ministry. Uncertainty will certainly continue for some time and even now planning for the future is still impacted by a feeling in the back of one’s mind that everything can change again. At the same time, everyone must be commended for their good and accurate actions under these special conditions because, despite the fact that public cultural life became very active and diverse during the summer, no infections were recorded so far at these concerts, theatre performances and even festivals. Thank you for a safe Estonia!
What should we learn from the current crisis? After all, there must be some hope. Perhaps the fact that the crisis has helped to clarify what we are doing, why we are doing it, and who benefits from it. In all fields of activity. Of course, the crisis also tested the relationships between the state and the creators, carriers and preservers of culture, as well as everyone with each other. But we managed and we have proven that we are all standing together for the good of the entire field of culture and its continuity. Estonian cultural life will emerge from this crisis at least as strong as when it entered it.
NordenBladet —Chairs of ten Foreign Affairs Committees of the European Union made a joint statement to express their concern and disappointment at the People’s Republic of China’s recent decision to impose the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region without the consent of the people of Hong Kong.
Enn Eesmaa, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu, said that, since the law had been adopted by Beijing and not by Hong Kong, it constituted a direct breach of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration lodged with the United Nations. “The Declaration set out that Hong Kong would retain its autonomous executive, legislative and independent judicial power until at least 2047. China’s recent step however disregarded the agreement, and my colleagues from other parliaments and I can in no way agree to such a breach. Quite the contrary – we condemn it,” Eesmaa stated.
The Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committees note that the law raises significant concern that judicial independence is being undermined by empowering Hong Kong’s Chief Executive rather than its Chief Justice is to appoint judges to hear national security cases. The signatories find that this threatens civil rights and the commercial stability.
“Allowing China jurisdiction further violates the Joint Declaration as well as the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The legislation also goes against China’s own Basic Law for Hong Kong which states that Hong Kong is to bring forward its own national security legislation”, the statement reads.
The statement also says that Hong Kong’s autonomy and independent judiciary have guaranteed the personal rights and freedoms of its people for decades and have made the territory an important keystone in the international trading system. “Given their rights and the importance of Hong Kong, this cannot be seen as a purely domestic affair. In breaching a legally binding agreement and undermining the rule of law, this also undermines the good faith among nations who enter into international agreements.”
The Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committees say that article 38 causes further concern as it seeks to violate the sovereignty of other nations. “In claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction it infringes freedom of speech in countries like ours that place a high value on civil rights. It is hard to see how an extradition treaty with either Hong Kong or China could be agreed when the demands of Beijing infringe so directly on basic human rights in our nations,” it is stated.
“We urge the People’s Republic of China to rethink its decision to impose this law, and to uphold its commitments to the people of Hong Kong as well as the international community,” the signatories say to conclude their joint statement.
The joint statement has been signed by the Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committees of the parliaments of Belgium, Estonia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Latvia, Norway, Germany, Denmark and the United Kingdom, and the European Parliament.
NordenBladet —Today we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Sumner Welles Declaration, which condemned the forced occupation and annexation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union, and served as the foundation of the United States’ five-decade long non-recognition policy of Soviet occupation of the Baltic States.
Enn Eesmaa, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu, emphasised that the declaration, issued by acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles on July 23, 1940, was an exceptional sign of our shared commitment to freedom, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. “From 1940 until the full restoration of Baltic countries’ independence half a century later, the flags of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania continued to fly in Washington, just as our peoples continued to believe in a future in which liberty would be returned and sovereignty – restored,” Eesmaa said.
In Eesmaa’s words, the Welles Declaration set out an international framework for the existence of the Baltic States de jure throughout the entire period of Soviet occupation and for the restoration of statehood of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that followed later.
Eesmaa affirmed that, today, too, the Declaration is a stark, inspiring and an important reminder of the need to uphold the principles of international law and to oppose, as was stated in the declaration, “predatory activities, whether they are carried out by the use of force or by the threat of force”. “As we move deeper into the 21st century, our shared commitment to democratic values, secure borders, and the territorial integrity of sovereign states remains as unwavering as ever,” Eesmaa said.
Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee recalled that the United States’ Crimea Declaration on July 25, 2018, reaffirmed the same principles as in the Welles Declaration, emphasising its policy of refusal to recognise illegal annexation of territory seized by force, and this stance is welcomed and fully supported by the Baltic States.
“On this important anniversary, we celebrate independence, pay tribute to those who suffered and sacrificed to ensure it. We recognise the importance of the United States’ significant contributions both historically and on this day, thus playing an irreplaceable part in ensuring security in the Baltics and Europe. Estonia is proud to be among those NATO member states that commit at least 2% of their GDP for defense, so that, along with our partners, we can fulfill the shared vision of a Europe peaceful, united and free,” Enn Eesmaa said.
NordenBladet —At its extraordinary session, the Riigikogu discussed the Bill on Amendments to the Aliens Act (mitigation of the labour crisis) (192 SE), initiated by the Estonian Reform Party Faction. The Bill provided that the work permits of the foreign employees who were employed in Estonia as at 17 March were to be extended until 31 December 2020. The Riigikogu rejected the Bill at the first reading.
The aim of the Bill was to keep the foreign labour already employed in Estonia so that it would help fill the gaps in demand that could not be filled with Estonian residents upon suspension of the free movement of labour. The situation is the worst with seasonal jobs in agriculture, but the loss of foreign labour is also irreparable in the construction sector, industry, social welfare and elsewhere.
During the debate, the representatives of factions Ivari Padar (Social Democratic Party), Kersti Sarapuu (Centre Party), Helir-Valdor Seeder (Isamaa), Jaak Valge (Estonian Conservative People’s Party) and Kaja Kallas (Reform Party) took the floor.
Padar said that the expulsion of foreign labour on 31 July would obviously be an ill-considered political caprice. Therefore the Social Democratic Party Faction would support the proceedings on the Bill. Sarapuu commended the Government’s decision that morning on the resolution of the foreign labour problems. In her opinion, the Bill was not sustainable in terms of the resolution of the situation. Seeder explained the decision made at today’s Government sitting, according to which the pre-coronavirus situation in the use of foreign labour would be restored if the use of foreign labour complied with the medical examination requirements. Valge said that the Estonian Conservative People’s Party could not vote for the Bill because the import of cheap labour enhanced the facilitation of the settlement of people of Slavic background in Estonia. In his opinion, the use of cheap labour keeps our overall remuneration low, while at the same time Estonia is haunted by unemployment that should be resolved at the expense of internal reserves. Kallas expressed her delight that the opposition’s pressure had borne fruit and the Government had been forced to propose their solution that day. The decision proposed by the Government today is a solution to a problem they themselves have created. The greatest concern is that, with its activities, the Government will turn the country into an enclosed province. If the Bill were to be rejected from the legislative proceedings, a situation might arise where a large number of cows would remain unmilked.
The Estonian Conservative People’s Party Faction moved to reject the Bill at the first reading. The result of voting: 52 votes in favour and 42 against. The Bill was dropped from the proceedings.
NordenBladet —In their Joint Statement, the Chairmen of the Foreign Affairs Committees of the Parliaments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland call on the State Duma and the authorities of the Russian Federation to withdraw from proceeding the proposal to revoke and invalidate the resolution condemning the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol.
In 1989, the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR adopted the resolution that condemned the 1939 Soviet-German Non-Aggression Treaty. Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) Enn Eesmaa said that the bill on revoking and invalidating that resolution, which was currently being proceeded in the State Duma, was a regrettable attempt to rewrite history. “World War II that caused the death of tens of millions of people, occupation of the Baltic States, and the partition of Poland between two totalitarian powers were the direct results of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol. The proposed law is an attempt to distort those events and to justify the use of military force against smaller neighbours, and this is done at the expense of the memory of the victims of the World War,” he emphasised.
The Joint Statement of the Chairmen of the Foreign Affairs Committees underlines that the proposal on revoking the 1989 resolution will not have any impact on the unequivocal condemnation of the Pact and its secret protocol as an illegal act under the international law. Likewise, it will not affect its assessment by historians.
The Joint Statement points out that the rehabilitation of the totalitarian imperialism in the proceeded bill is an attempt to justify the rejection of the equal protection of sovereign states under international law. “It is particularly dangerous since it justifies, in fact affirms the current policy of the Russian Federation towards Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, and opens the path for further potential violations of the international law at the expense of independence and sovereignty of the neighbouring countries,” the Chairmen of the Foreign Affairs Committees write.
“We call on the State Duma and the authorities of the Russian Federation to make all possible efforts to base the relations with their neighbours on the international law, the respect of their sovereignty and territorial integrity, the restoration of trust in international relations and reestablishment of good neighbourly relations in our part of Europe. In such efforts the first necessary step will be the withdrawal from proceeding the proposal,” the Joint Statement says.
Full text of the Statement of the Chairmen of the Foreign Affairs Committees
