Sester says ESM draft law ‘reasonable’

TALLINN - With the Minister of Finance Jurgen Ligi present, the Riigikogu Committee on Finance discussed the draft law on ratifying the European Stability Mechanism on July 31, reports National Broadcasting. Opposition MPs want to amend the proposal so that as many decisions as possible regarding the ESM would be made by the Riigikogu plenary assembly.

Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee Sven Sester (PRU) noted that the draft law for ratifying the ESM agreement could face the same fate as that involving its predecessor, EFSF, which means that the proposal could be amended quite significantly.
“Today, at least, the committee decided that we will proceed with the current draft and we can see between the first and the second reading whether the mandates will have to be changed,” he said. “At first glance, the legislative draft appears to be reasonable,” added Sester.

Rannar Vassiljev from the Social Democrats’ faction estimated that the draft law in question endows the European Union Affairs Committee with greater powers than the committee has according to the Riigikogu Rules of Procedure Act. He was of the opinion that as many decisions as possible concerning the ESM would have to be made by the Riigikogu plenary assembly.

“The time-critical aspects of ESM would have to be determined very clearly, otherwise there would be too much room for various interpretations and a situation could develop where the government would not be interested in keeping the issue under much of the public’s attention, deciding that an aspect would be time-critical and would keep the debates out of the plenary assembly and instead hold them in the European Union Affairs Committee,” explained Vassiljev, the deputy chairman of the Riigikogu Committee on Finance.
Center Party member Kadri Simson stated that the leadership of the Center Party would decide whether their party would support the ESM or not.

The first reading of the ESM agreement was to take place in Riigikogu on Aug. 8.