Eesti in brief - 2013-02-07

  • 2013-02-06

Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said at the meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels that Estonia feels it is necessary to start the EU’s military training mission in Mali as soon as possible and is prepared to send two staff officers to the European Union mission, reports LETA. Paet said it is essential to successfully ward off the extremists and restore the political process in Mali. “It is important to follow the schedule compiled by the government of Mali, which sets the goals of organizing free presidential and parliamentary relations, restoring the territorial integrity of the country, and achieving physical and social security as well as rule of law,” he added. Estonia is concerned about violations of human rights in the parts of Mali that were under the control of rebels. “It is also essential that the extremists that are driven out of Mali do not find a new region for their activities,” he added.

Starting this summer, the Estonian national electric mobility program ELMO will launch a rental business with electric cars in Tallinn and Tartu to advocate their use, reports Eesti Paevaleht. ELMO’s chief, Jarmo Tuisk, says that the rental price of a car per hour would be 8-10 euros and the state’s interests in offering the service is to get people used to electric cars. “We mostly started [the program] because we have received feedback that ‘an electric car is cool, maybe I would want one, but I would like to try it first without having to buy it at first.’ The principle is to introduce electric cars and also the lifestyle, such that one doesn’t have to own a car,” said Tuisk. It is a promotional project that lasts 48 months. “We’ll see what happens then,” said Tuisk. Twenty-four vehicles will be on offer in Tallinn and Tartu, stationed at speed charging stations.

Estonian Chamber of Agriculture and Commerce (ECAC) manager Roomet Sormus says that the aim of the farmers’ protest action on Feb. 5, during which hay rolls on the Via Baltica route were to be set on fire, is to fight for the competitiveness of Estonia food, reports Public Broadcasting. “We have worked for the past 1.5 years in the name of achieving equal competitive conditions for Estonian farmers in the next seven years, starting 2014. Since the farming subsidies of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the lowest in the European Union, even half the European Union average, it is not possible for our producers to compete at an equal basis with other colleagues in the European Union,” Sormus said.Hay rolls in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, on the Via Baltica route, were to be lit simultaneously. Around 160 hay rolls were installed on the Tallinn-Ikla route and were to be lit at around a hundred locations.