NordenBladet — At today’s plenary sitting, the Riigikogu appointed Urmas Volens a justice of the Supreme Court. He will become a member of the Supreme Court from 1 November 2020.

The explanatory memorandum to the Draft Resolution of the Riigikogu “Appointment of Urmas Volens a Justice of the Supreme Court” (222 OE), submitted by Villu Kõve, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, notes that Urmas Volens is an experienced and recognised lawyer whose professional experience in various positions at the Ministry of Justice, as a sworn advocate in law offices, and associate professor of civil process at the School of Law of the University of Tartu allow him to contribute significantly to the work of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court and the further development of Estonian civil law.

68 members of the Riigikogu voted in favour of the Resolution and 19 were against. There were two abstentions.

One Bill passed the second reading:

The Bill on Amendments to the Spatial Data Act and the Apartment Ownership and Apartment Associations Act (196 SE), initiated by the Government, will harmonise the bases for the establishment of unique addresses, simplify the communication with owners of address objects and ensure better interoperability between the state information systems.

The Land Board will be given the right to establish areas that have a unique address. Under the current procedure, densely populated areas and built up areas determined by a comprehensive plan are areas requiring a unique address. Since the abovementioned areas have not been defined in legislation, local governments determine them very variedly by plans. This involves the problem that buildings may be difficult to find.

Areas requiring a unique address that can be determined on uniform bases ensure uniform address organisation in the country, and at the same time involve no additional obligations or restrictions on construction or other activities.

In addition, the communication with owners of address objects will be simplified, and the possibility to notify of changes to addresses by e-mail and, in the case of apartment buildings, through the apartment association, will be included.

With the amendments to the Apartment Ownership and Apartment Associations Act, better interoperability between the state information systems, in particular the land register and the address data information system will be ensured. When an apartment ownership is established in the land register, each apartment that is registered as an apartment ownership is also assigned a corresponding address object in the address data system.

Tarmo Kruusimäe (Isamaa) took the floor during the debate.

A Bill passed the first reading:

Under the Bill on the Ratification of the Agreements necessary for Accession to the Convention Establishing the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (229 SE), initiated by the Government, the Republic of Estonia will accede to the Convention Establishing the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, including its Protocol on Privileges and Immunities, and the Protocol of 2005 to Amend the Convention, and ratifies the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Estonia and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on the accession of the Republic of Estonia to the ECMWF Convention and related terms and conditions which was signed on 3 June 2020.

The primary purposes of the Centre are the development of a capability for medium-range weather forecasting and the provision of medium-range weather forecasts to the Member States.

The ECMWF member state status will enable to obtain additional information in order to use the results of the model calculations received from the Centre to create high quality products and services meeting local needs. The available information will help implement nowcasting, introduce and implement ensemble forecasts, and increase the reliability and accuracy of forecasts of various duration. The products and services provided by the ECMWF will serve as the basis for the daily work of the Estonian Weather Service of the Environment Agency, and the accuracy of Estonian weather forecasts will depend on them.

The Bill on Amendments to the Public Holidays and Days of National Importance Act (153 SE), initiated by the Social Democratic Party Faction, was intended to amend the Public Holidays and Days of National Importance Act according to which an additional day of rest is given when a national day or a public holiday falls on a weekend.

The Constitutional Committee as the lead committee moved to reject the Bill at the first reading. 53 members of the Riigikogu were in favour of the motion and eight were against. Thus, the Bill was dropped from the legislative proceedings.

The Bill on Amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act (199 SE), initiated by the Social Democratic Party Faction, provided for the extension of the range of persons receiving unemployment insurance benefit to employees and officials who terminate their contract of employment or service relationship on their own initiative or by agreement of the parties. The aim was to apply a waiting period of 30 calendar days on the payment of unemployment insurance benefit.

The Bill proposed an amendment according to which the rate of unemployment insurance benefit for the first 100 days of unemployment would have risen to 70 per cent of the average remuneration of the employee, and further to 50 per cent starting from the 101th day.

The Social Affairs Committee as the lead committee moved to reject the Bill at the first reading. 53 members of the Riigikogu were in favour of the motion and nine were against. Thus, the Bill was dropped from the legislative proceedings.

The Bill on Amendments to the Labour Market Services and Benefits Act and the Unemployment Insurance Act (197 SE), initiated by the Social Democratic Party Faction, was intended to amend the Labour Market Services and Benefits Act and to raise the unemployment allowance rate to at least 60 per cent of the amount of the minimum wage in the previous year. At the same time, according to the proposal, if the unemployment allowance rate were higher than unemployment insurance benefit, the benefit would be paid to the extent of the unemployment allowance.

Lauri Läänemets (Social Democratic Party) took the floor during the debate.

The Social Affairs Committee as the lead committee moved to reject the Bill at the first reading. 45 members of the Riigikogu were in favour of the motion and nine were against. Thus, the Bill was dropped from the legislative proceedings.

The motion of no confidence in the Minister of Finance Martin Helme was not supported in the Riigikogu today. 45 member of the Riigikogu were in favour of the motion of no confidence submitted by 45 members of the Reform Party Faction and the Social Democratic Party Faction. 53 voted against. The support of at least 51 members of the Riigikogu was needed to express no confidence.

During the debate, Kaja Kallas (Reform Party), Katri Raik (Social Democratic Party) and Urmas Reitelmann (Estonian Conservative People’s Party) took the floor.

The sitting ended at 8.05 p.m.

NordenBladet — Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) joined the signatories of the open letter initiated by the members of the United States House of Representatives, which calls on releasing of political prisoners in Belarus and condemns Lukashenko regime’s use of violence.

Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Enn Eesmaa underlined that violence against peaceful protesters in Belarus and politically motivated detention of members of the Coordination Council were regrettable. “We continue to stand for the civil society of Belarus and their free will. Together with all who have signed the letter, we stand in strong support of the vision of Europe free and at peace, where citizens can choose their own future. We find that the people of Belarus deserve the same,” Eesmaa said.

Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Marko Mihkelson noted that the open letter supported carefully targeted sanctions against human rights offenders in Belarus. “The letter demands that the Lukashenko regime members responsible for grave human rights violations committed against Belarusians should be brought to justice. This also includes imposing of sanctions, and international coordination and cooperation, also with our transatlantic allies, is important in preparing for this,” he added.

“As legislators whose nations are bound together by shared democratic, transatlantic values, we stand in strong solidarity with the Belarusian people, including those protesting and wrongly imprisoned,” the open letter says. “We condemn the Lukashenko regime’s use of violence, intimidation, arrests, and repressive tactics against the people of Belarus, including the targeting of leading members of the Coordination Council.”

The legislators find that Lukashenka’s regime has unjustly detained opposition leader Marya Kalesnikava and her colleagues. They demand that all charges against Kalesnikava be dropped, and that she be immediately released along with fellow Coordination Council members and all other political prisoners.

The signatories of the open letter emphasise that they are monitoring the situation in Belarus and the regime’s actions closely. “We … are fully committed to using our legislative powers to advocate and act to support the Belarusian people.”

The open letter has also been signed by the representatives of the parliaments of Poland, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Belgium, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, Ukraine, Italy, Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, Bulgaria, Malta, Switzerland, Moldova, Austria, Denmark, Norway and Ireland, and the European Parliament.

Full text of the open letter

Riigikogu Press Service
Liisa Johanna Lukk
Phone: +372 631 6456, +372 5331 0789
E-mail: liisajohanna.lukk@riigikogu.ee
Questions: press@riigikogu.ee

Source: Parliament of Estonia

NordenBladet — The Bill under which the amount of the funds allocated by the state to research and development will amount to at least one per cent of GDP passed the first reading in the Riigikogu today.

NordenBladet — At today’s sitting, the Riigikogu discussed the overview of the civil service report of 2019 by Jaak Aab, Minister of Public Administration.

The report focuses in particular on civil service, that is, civil servants of state and local government authorities, but it also gives an overview of the whole public sector and government sector. The personnel statistics covers, among other things, the number of employees, the labour costs, and the indicators of recruitment, assessment and turnorver as well as composition of staff. In addition, it gives an overview of the training and development activities, ethics and the legal framework of the Civil Service Act.

Last year, state and local government authorities employed 27,628 civil servants, which accounted for 4.2 per cent of the total employment in Estonia. „In agencies, reorganisation of the work of various sectors was continued, in order to provide a better public service both digitally and in direct communication,” Jaak Aab said.

Last year, 132,333 people worked in the public sector, which is 0.08 per cent up from a year earlier. Starting from 2008, the number of public sector employees has decreased by 13,333 people, that is, by nine per cent. 27,628 civil servants worked in civil service, that is, state and local government authorities, which is 0.2 per cent up in a year. In seven years, the number of civil servants has decreased by 2322 persons, that is, by 7.8 per cent. 22,059 civil servants worked in state authorities and 5569 in local government authorities. More than a third of civil servants were special servants, including police and prison officials, rescue service workers, etc.

The average age of civil servants remained at 43.5 years, but the average age is on the rise. There are slightly more women than men, while there are more younger men in special services.

The proportion of people with higher education is significantly larger in the civil service than in Estonia as a whole. The proportion of people with higher education was 42 per cent of all the employed in Estonia; at the same time, 61 per cent of civil servants have higher education.

The average gross monthly salary of state officials was 1877 euro last year, which is 8.6 per cent up in a year. The average gross monthly salary of local government officials was 1692 euro, which is 5.3 per cent up in a year. The average gross monthly salary in the government sector was 1494 euro, which is 9.9 per cent up in a year. The average gross monthly wage increased 7.4 per cent, rising to 1407 euro.

Aab explained the future perspectives. “With our team in the area of government of the Minister of Public Administration, we are looking for new opportunities to optimise governance and activities, on the one hand, and to use the taxpayers’ money most effectively for the functioning of the state. However, at the same time, we must not back down on quality and the quality of services, but we need to improve them even more,” Aab said. He continues to attach importance to the development of e-governance and wider use of information technology solutions in the provision of public services. Undoubtedly, we will also need to take into account the needs of developing e-governance when preparing for the new European Union 2021+ financial period. “The state needs to be smarter and more modern, and it is possible to automate many services. Then the need to communicate with state authorities for bureaucratic operations would be reduced for citizens, undertakings as well as local governments,” Aab said. “Civil service must however be able to keep abreast of global technology trends and to get used to the ever-increasing flexibility in the ways of working. Teleworking has come to stay. The corona crisis also showed this.”

Aab said that we also needed to continue moving state-salaried jobs out of the capital. “We need to value and appreciate the people who serve our country. We need to recruit the best experts in their fields to civil service and to remunerate and train them properly. The state and local governments need to develop and become more up to date as employers,” the minister noted.

During the debate, Kersti Sarapuu (Centre Party) and Heiki Hepner (Isamaa) took the floor.

The Minister of Social Affairs Tanel Kiik replied to the interpellation concerning the situation of children with chronic diseases (No 39), submitted by members of the Riigikogu Helmen Kütt, Jaak Juske, Heljo Pikhof, Jevgeni Ossinovski, Riina Sikkut, Indrek Saar and Ivari Padar on 18 June. 

During the open microphone, Urmas Reitelmann took the floor. 

NordenBladet — Today, the Speakers of the parliaments of the Nordic Countries and the Baltic States (NB8) held a video conference where the events in Belarus were discussed.

President of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) Henn Põlluaas said at the meeting with colleagues that on 25 August, the Parliament of Estonia had passed the Statement in Support of Democracy and Civil Society in Belarus. He expressed support to the aspirations of the civil society of Belarus – ending of violence, release of political prisoners and holding of new, free presidential elections.

The Speakers of Nordic and Baltic parliaments assured that their attention towards the events in Belarus would not cease.

The video conference was also attended by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is in exile in Lithuania. She thanked the Nordic Countries and the Baltic States for their support.

NB8 is the Nordic-Baltic cooperation format that has been bringing Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania around the same table since 1992.

NordenBladet — The National Defence Committee held an extraordinary sitting today to discuss keeping the defence spending on the current level and using loan money. The Committee adopted a relevant statement.

NordenBladet — Two drafts passed the first reading

The Draft Resolution of the Riigikogu “Use of the Defence Forces in the Fulfilment of the International Commitments of the Estonian State in Operation ‘Sentinel’ of the International Maritime Security Construct” (211 OE), initiated by the Government, will allow to contribute with up to five servicemen to operation “Sentinel”.

In summer 2019, the United States of America launched an initiative to establish the International Maritime Security Construct IMSC, which aims to ensure the freedom of navigation and security of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and to promote a rule-based international order. In order to achieve this, IMSC has launched the operation Sentinel in the Strait of Hormuz region.

Estonia’s priority is international relations based on international law and rules, including the ensuring of freedom of navigation. By participating in the operation, Estonia will make its contribution to increasing stability and security in the Middle East region. In autumn 2020, Estonia will contribute with a staff officer at the operation headquarters in Bahrain. By participating in operation Sentinel, Estonia will continue excellent bilateral cooperation in international missions with its strategic partners, the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

The expenses of the participation in the operation will be covered from the budget of the area of government of the Ministry of Defence.

The amendment proposed by the Bill on Amendments to the Local Government Organisation Act (212 SE), initiated by the Constitutional Committee, concerns people who are members of a municipal council and are employed on the basis of an employment contract in an administrative agency of the same rural municipality or city. In the future, suspension of the authority of member of the council will be applied to such people, instead of termination of authority. The proposed amendment does not concern officials.

The initiation of the Bill was motivated by a relevant application of the Chancellor of Justice for the Supreme Court to adopt a position. The Supreme Court had found that the restrictions in place for employees employed under an employment contract at municipal administrative agencies were not necessary and excessively restricted their right to stand as candidates. Consequently, the committee also deems it necessary to ease the restriction and supports suspension of the authority instead of termination of the authority.

The Act is planned to enter into force on 17 October when the decision of the Supreme Court will also enter into force. As of this date, it will no longer be possible to prematurely terminate the authority of the council members who are employees of municipal administrative agencies.

NordenBladet — Today, a seminar on Asia was held in the Conference Hall of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) on the initiative of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu. The main topic of the seminar was the importance of Asia for Estonia, considering the increasing impact of the Asian region in the economic, trade as well as geopolitical perspective.

In his opening address, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu Enn Eesmaa highlighted the idea of the Asian Centre at the University of Tartu and the proposal of the Foreign Affairs Committee to create an Asian strategy until 2035 for Estonia.

“Estonia needs a strategy that would take into account the interests of as many social groups as possible,” he said. “We need to have clearer principles for long-term communication with the Asian countries in education, research, economy, culture and in many other fields. The Foreign Affairs Committee will continue its work through parliamentary hearings, seeking new opportunities and searching for fresh solutions,” Eesmaa said.

Deputy Chairman of the Committee Marko Mihkelson pointed out that the Foreign Affairs Committee had been dealing with Asia as an important region in several compositions of the Riigikogu. He recalled the report “The Opportunities and Interests of Estonia in Asia until 2025”, which had been prepared in 2012 on the basis of the hearings in the Committee. “Eight years ago we were not able to foresee how fast the impact of Asia in the context of global economy, politics and security would enter our daily life. The influence of China and other Asian countries in the coming years and decades may be much more defining that we can estimate today,” he said.

Rector of the Estonian Business School (EBS) and former Head of Research of the Foresight Centre Meelis Kitsing spoke about the meaning of the scenarios on global lines of power to the relations between the European Union and Asia. Using the global lines of power scenarios prepared by the Foresight Centre, Kitsing described four alternatives for Europe until 2035. In his opinion, the key factors of the scenarios are the cooperation of the EU member states and their ability to develop an infrastructure that would have an increasing role of a geopolitical instrument.

Member of Asia Update Organising Team Liisi Karindi presented a summary of Estonia’s risks and opportunities within the context of emerging Asia. Karindi drew attention to the fact that we could not ignore the growing importance of Asia in global economy and in politics, education, security and other spheres. She emphasised that, for its sustainable and successful development in the context of the growing importance of Asia, Estonia needed to expand its knowledge and formulate its ambitions.

Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Rainer Saks discussed the approach of gathering the topics that are important for society into a uniform Asian strategy. According to him, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of how to define the region we term as Asia in the strategy. Saks also said that several different social groups, including the economic and academic community, must definitely be involved in the public debate on the Asian strategy.

Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu and representatives of the University of Tartu, the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, the Government Office, Tallinn University, Enterprise Estonia, Tallinn University of Technology and ministries participated in the seminar.

NordenBladet — Põlluaas spoke about the adoption of the first Constitution of the Republic of Estonia one hundred years ago, and the challenges faced by democratic countries, the foreign and security policy and the activities of the Riigikogu in connection with the corona crisis.

Põlluaas pointed out that the COVID-19 situation was not likely to end in the nearest future, and its course was unpredictable. “Therefore we need to do everything to minimise risks to human life and health, and to ensure the functioning and recovery of society and economy. For that, we have adopted a number of important measures that have justified themselves, but we cannot sit back,” Põlluaas said. “As we have seen in the case of COVID-19, it is often vitally important to include urgent issues in the agenda at once and to solve them. However, things must not be over-dramatised. A balanced approach is needed,” the President of the Riigikogu emphasised.

Põlluaas underlined that we were global pioneers in providing digital services, but we needed a fundamental and comprehensive discussion on the relations between technology and politics, as well as technology and the parliament.

“This spring, we amended the Riigikogu Rules of Procedure and Internal Rules Act so that in a crisis situation, where the parliament cannot convene physically, it would be possible to hold plenary sittings electronically. We have been developing a relevant platform for the whole summer and it is already in the testing stage. Only a few parliaments in the world have such a possibility of electronic sittings, and I dare affirm that ours is a cut above all of them. In the near future we will all have a chance to test it,” Põlluaas said.

Speaking of the tasks faced by the Members of the Riigikogu, Põlluaas noted: “Although we may have different approaches to problems, we definitely share the common opinion that the state must always try to improve the life of the people of Estonia. If we have good will and sufficient readiness to cooperate, we can do it.”

Kaljulaid spoke about Estonia’s long-term development issues, development of economy, personal freedoms and universal rights, problems relating to the administrative reform, strengthening the role of local governments and resolving the challenges faced by the Riigikogu.

Kaljulaid said, “These long-term developmental risks must be mitigated with smart leadership. That work can be done in this very hall.”

“And then, we have the pandemic. Fighting the virus means that our ordinary rights may be restricted in the name of a certain greater societal benefit – preventing fatalities. But these restrictions must be proportional and applied uniformly,” the President of the Republic said.

“I would be proud of the Riigikogu if this year’s debates were to show our people that you truly care about their rights, freedoms, future, and also their wish to make local communities the kind of Estonia that the people who live there themselves desire,” Kaljulaid emphasised.

“I would be proud of the Riigikogu if, in this season, parallel to the heated debate over freedoms and interpretation of the Constitution, you were to finally begin drafting laws that will give us a green Estonia, a monolingual school system, and legislation that is as permissive as possible in regard to new technologies founded on data use,” the President added.

“Let’s make it so that the rest of the world isn’t a step ahead of us, but vice-versa,” Kaljulaid said. The President of the Republic wished the Riigikogu all the strength.

The songs performed by the chamber choir Collegium Musicale, conducted by Endrik Üksvärav, created a festive atmosphere at the opening sitting.

Text of the speech by the President of the Riigikogu Henn Põlluaas:

During the open microphone, Kalle Grünthal, Peeter Ernits and Urmas Espenberg took the floor.

NordenBladet — From today, the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) is using a new system for preparing of verbatim reports of the sittings. The system is called Hans and it was developed by the Estonian IT company Finestmedia. The system is using the speech recognition technology created in Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech).

Administrative Director of the Chancellery of the Riigikogu Ahto Saks said that the new system performed the time-consuming work of stenographers. “The system records the debates taking place in the Riigikogu Session Hall as sound files, and the speech recognition writes it down. After that, editors come to help Hans and revise the text, and then it is published on the Riigikogu website,” Saks described the workflow.

Saks explained that it had taken two years from the idea to the introduction of the system, but it was not completely ready yet, and the development and improvements continued. “First, Hans will make the verbatim records of the Riigikogu sittings and Question Times. It is planned to use the system also in the work of the committees in the future,” Saks added.

Finestmedia’s Head of Division Lauri Esko said that creation of the verbatim reports system had been an exciting challenge for their company. The technological solutions provided by different parties could be inventively integrated to see how the synergy emerging from it brought about a major development.

“We created a solution that has a much wider potential than its today’s use,” Esko pointed out. “The systems containing speech recognition can be an efficient tool in the work of courts, prisons and the police, but also in health care, research and journalism, where writing down or making a detailed report of a conversation is necessary.” Esko added that the solution also had a great export potential. “We have already introduced Hans to delegations from several countries who wish to start writing the success story of their e-governance with its help,” he said.

Head of the Laboratory of Language Technology of Tallinn University of Technology Tanel Alumäe believes the new system shows how modern technology helps make routine work more effective.

“We have been actively working on speech recognition for 15 years, and today Estonian speech recognition is used by radiologists, researchers and journalists. Web-based speech recognition is freely available to everyone through ‘tekstiks.ee’ environment,” the researcher said. “In spite of the smallness of the Estonian language, the Estonian language technology is on a relatively high level.” Globally, speech recognition is widely used with larger languages.