EKRE leader: Estonia should waive EU help, leave the union

  • 2017-05-02
  • BNS/TBT Staff

Mart Helme, chairman of the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE), said that Estonia should give up the support offered by the European Union and consider leaving the union.

“Estonia should give up the money coming from Europe. The funding has corrupted our economy and has been used extensively on all sorts of pointless things,” Helme said in an interview published in the LP weekend supplement of Eesti Paevaleht. He added that Estonia could manage very well without EU support.

“In a way, we are like Japan or Germany after the Second World War -- our economy is largely a wasteland. Investments must be made and the most modern technology must be put to use,” Helme said.

The EKRE chairman said that Social Democrats, who are the mainstay of the government, have never established how to make more money, only how to spend it.

“Our idea is simple: the economy must grow and money must be generated. To get growing, we must eliminate all obstacles,” Helme said.

Helme said that the EU is moving more and more towards totalitarianism. “We want to turn that around. There must be as little state regulation as possible and as much as is necessary.”

With seven seats in the 101-seat Riigikogu, opposition EKRE is the smallest of the political forces represented in the Estonian parliament.