Eesti in brief - 2011-09-29

  • 2011-09-28

More waste per capita is created in Estonia than in any other EU state, reports Postimees Online citing Eurostat. Eurostat announced that in Estonia, 8,216 kilograms of non-mineral waste was created per capita.  Finland came second with 4,350 kg and Austria third with 2,749 kilograms. In Estonia the large amount of waste is caused by the energy and refinery sectors. The EU average is 1,853 kilograms. 33 percent of Estonian waste came from industry and 63 percent from other sectors.

The Estonian government is currently debating its new four-year policy towards the European Union. According to experts, the cabinet is expected to remain heavily pro-EU, reports BBN. The government might take a more cautious approach in avoiding possible disputes with the European Commission. The case is the long-term dispute over the allocation of emission quotas, which took several years and threatened to cause much higher damages than anyone was able to predict. Estonia could set out to play a more prominent role in the EU is in the development of the digital internal market. At present all 27 member states have established their own rules on e-commerce. Last May Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip already urged all member states to take action to harmonize the regulations.

The city of Tallinn’s public transport managers are considering buying around 25 trolleybuses that are some 10 years old from the Riga trolleybus company, since Tallinn has to write off around as many trolleybuses soon and cannot buy new ones because of loan ceilings set on municipalities, reports Postimees. Tallinn’s Tram and Trolleybus Company board chairman Toomas Sepp said that the trolleybuses that were bought during the Soviet times need replacing. A second option would be to buy environmentally friendly trolleybuses in the framework of some project like the CO2 quota sale, but the city has no control over this. In Riga, 26 trolleybuses produced in 1998 stand unused after the Riga trolleybus company cut its number of lines by around 20 percent in 2009.