Eesti in brief - 2012-04-05

The European Court of Justice did not satisfy the appeal that the European Commission had submitted against a 2009 decision of the EU first level court, which ruled in favor of Estonia in a CO2 quota dispute, reports Postimees Online. The decision of the European Court of Justice that was arrived at on March 29 ruled in favor of Estonia and confirmed that the European Commission does not have the right to cut Estonia’s pollution quota. “We protested against the wish of the European Commission to dictate to Estonia what our energy production portfolio should be like. We won once, now we won for good,” Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said at the government’s press conference. Estonia received the right to emit 13 million tons of CO2 instead of the 12.7 million tons offered by the European Commission. “This may seem like a small thing, processing over nothing, but these are tens of, or hundreds of millions’ worth, depending on what currencies we are talking about,” said Ansip.

As of the beginning of 2012, there were nearly 90,100 persons declared incapable of work in Estonia, reports National Broadcasting. This is 7,500 more than a year earlier. The number of people with the incapacity to work has been growing for years and during the past three years the year-on-year growth pace has been 7-9 percent. In the past ten years, the number of people receiving pensions for incapacity to work has nearly doubled in Estonia. Analyst of the Ministry of Social Affairs Mari Kreitzberg commented that the principal causes for incapacity to work are illnesses not caused by any accidents or regular employment, occupational diseases and injuries. “We also cannot overlook the Soviet-era working conditions that were harmful to health and, as a result, many people are no longer capable of work,” she added.