Eesti in brief - 2010-02-24

Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said at the government press conference on Feb. 18 that the Estonian state owns 3,000 properties that it doesn’t need, reports Postimees Online. Ansip said that ministries and other state institutions aren’t too interested in selling the real estate that is useless for them, though, since organizing the sales process requires a lot of resources, both human and financial, and later still accusations can emerge that the sale did not take place at the right price. Ansip said that the issue has to be worked on. “These properties dilapidate over time.” Finance Minister Jurgen Ligi said that with the state real estate audit complete, the direction is to consolidate all state-owned real estate in the hands of the State Real Estate Company (SREC). He added that real estate with a general purpose, like office buildings will be ‘handled’ faster, while real estate with specialized uses will take more time to process.

The Estonian Police and Border Guard Board has confirmed that all the necessary procurements have been carried out and in October this year, at the latest, Estonian residents can apply for digital ID cards, reports Postimees Online. A digital ID card is a digital document that can be used to identify oneself in an electronic environment and sign digital documents. It will be a voluntary document and has a three year usage period. “A digital document offers a fast solution to people in the future. For example, when they have lost their ID card or it has been stolen, one can identify himself quickly in an e-environment and do the necessary procedures there,” said Board spokeswoman Maimo-Lii Paloveer. The digital ID card is different from the ordinary ID card in that it lacks the picture of its holder, and thus it cannot be used to physically identify a person.

Two new, modern medium-range radar units, the Groundmaster 403, being built near Paris, France, will be set up to monitor Estonia’s borders starting 2014, reports LETA. The manufacturer is French-U.S. joint company ThalesRaytheonSystems. Currently, Estonia’s air surveillance is based on the Kellavere radar, located on the Pandivere hills. Kellavere, produced by the U.S. company Lockheed Martin, started working in 2003, drastically improving air surveillance, not just in Estonia, but in all three Baltic states due to connections to BALTNET. While Kellavere, with a range of 450 km, shows rather clearly what takes place in the Estonian airspace, there are problems at some edges of its visibility range. At Estonia’s western border planes at a higher altitude are visible, but planes flying at lower altitudes may go unnoticed. The cost for the new radar is 350 million kroons (22.4 million euros), with the radar manufacturer in a ‘counter-purchase’ arrangement with Estonia. Finland operates 12 Groundmaster 403 units.