BabelTallinn

Estonian and German Governments: the Presence of the European Union in Georgia Must Be Expanded

Giovanni Angioni — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:05:00 +02:00

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip met with Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, with whom the main topic under discussion was the current situation in Georgia. The heads of the Estonian and German governments condemned the military aggression of Russia against the sovereign country. When speaking about the influence of the decisions and behaviour of Russia on relations with the European Union, both parties stressed that the European Union must be uniform in addressing Russia.

Andrus Ansip and Angela Merkel were of the same opinion, in that the Russian forces must withdraw from Georgia and that Russia must adhere to the six-point peace plan. Together, it was found that, in light of the present situation, on site international observation missions must be intensified.

Prime Minister Ansip stressed that the crisis in Georgia must be a turning point not for the withdrawal of Georgia, but for faster integration both with the European Union and NATO. “Estonia has consistently stressed the need to develop the European Neighbourhood Policy,” said Ansip, and emphasised that the need to increase the activity of the European Union in the current crisis area is obvious. During the meeting, the Prime Minister also made specific proposals with regard to political measures, such as the faster introduction of the visa simplification procedure between the European Union and Georgia and entry into a more in-depth free trade Agreement.

The discussion of the situation in Georgia will continue next Monday in Brussels, at the meeting of the European Council called under extraordinary circumstances.

When speaking about bilateral relations, the Prime Minister noted that Germany has done a great job regarding the rejoining of Estonia with Europe and supported Estonia during the moments when Estonia really needed international support. “Such partners who stand for stable and democratic values are very important for a small country,” said Ansip.

The Prime Minister thanked Germany for defending the air space of the Baltic States in the framework of the NATO air defence mission, organised this year from July to September.

The topic of energy was also briefly touched upon. The Prime Minister noted that for Estonia, it is very important that the local electricity sector be included among industries in the threat of carbon leakage in the European Union. “For Estonia, it is an issue of preserving the national independence of oil shale energy and electricity production,” said the Prime Minister. The heads of the governments discussed the energy issues in more detail at the official lunch that followed the meeting.

Recording of the extraordinary press conference of the heads of the Estonian and German governments:
http://meedia.rk.ee/pressikonverents-ek-1.wmv

Estonian MFA Position on Russia Declaration Over Georgia

Giovanni Angioni — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:37:00 +02:00

Estonia has repeatedly emphasised that Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected and must not be called into question.

The Russian Parliament’s decision to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent is counter to the principles of Georgia’s territorial integrity and further provokes tensions in the region. It also does not help to stabilise the current situation.
From the standpoint of international law, the decision of the Russian Parliament is meaningless and deplorable.

SPOKESPERSON´S OFFICE
pressitalitus@mfa.ee

Jüri Uluots, Prime Minister Who Acted as President, Will be Buried at Kirbla

Giovanni Angioni — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:51:00 +02:00

Sunday, 31 August, Jüri Uluots, the Prime Minister who acted as the President (1890-1945), and the remains of his family, will be buried in their homeland in Lääne County, Kirbla Cemetery.

The ashes of Jüri Uluots will be buried in the soil of his homeland, in the Month of Exile, Resistance and Restoration of Independence, in the anniversary year of the Republic of Estonia.

The ceremony at Kirbla church will begin at 12.00. This will be followed by the inhumation of Jüri Uluots and his wife Anette and son Erik, with honours, at Kirbla Cemetery, the burial ground of the Uluots family.

The reburial ceremony of Jüri Uluots, the Prime Minister who acted as President in exile will be attended by Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the President of the Republic of Estonia, Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, members of the students association Rotalia, close relatives and current holders of the former positions held by Uluots.

The remains of Jüri Uluots, his wife and son were exhumed from the Stockholm Forest Cemetery and brought to Estonia on 13 May of this year.

Jüri Uluots was the Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia beginning in 1939 and acted as the President from 1940 until his death in 1945, after which August Rei became the Prime Minister acting as the President of the Republic of Estonia in exile.

In 1944, Uluots appointed Otto Tief as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia and gave him a task to form the government of the republic, which laid the groundwork for the continuance of the independence of the Estonian State in exile.

The biography and historical photos of Jüri Uluots can be viewed at the memorial website: www.riik.ee/uluots

How Dangerous is Russia? - Cafebabel Debate in Tallinn

Giovanni Angioni — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +02:00

How and when will the Ossetian conflict end?
Does Estonia really risk its independence again?
What is Europe doing in the mean time?
And, most of all, what is happening in Russia?

The Estonian office of cafebabel.com - the European magazine is pleased to invite you to the debate

"How Dangerous is Russia?"

After the Russian-Georgian crisis, the world started to feel the pressure of a new, possible Cold War. Estonian politicians and public opinion split in two fearing the consequences this could have on the future of the Republic and asking help to NATO more often than European Union diplomacy while Russia showed everyone its will of playing a new leading role in the global order.

How and when will the Ossetian war really end? Does Estonia really risk its independence again? What is Europe doing in the mean time? And, most of all, what is happening in Russia?

Discuss these questions in the new BabelTallinn debate moderated by Mr. Vahur Koorits from Postimees and with exceptional guests such as H.M. the Georgian Embassador in Estonia, Mr. Zurab MARSHANIA, Sven MIKSER, Evelyn SEPP, Maarika MIIL, Aleksander SHEGEDIN and many other great key-speakers.

Friday, 22nd of August, Opetajate Maja, Raekoja Plats, Tallinn, 7pm

And if you will not be in Tallinn, do not miss the chance of joining the debate:
Connect to BabelTallinn at 7pm GMT+2 and watch it online!

For further info and reservations, please, contact:

Cafebabel.com - Tallinn

58224199

tallinn@cafebabel.com

<script src="http://static.mogulus.com/scripts/playerv2.js?channel=babeltallinn&layout=playerEmbedDefault&backgroundColor=0xffffff&backgroundAlpha=1&backgroundGradientStrength=0&chromeColor=0x000000&headerBarGlossEnabled=true&controlBarGlossEnabled=true&chatInputGlossEnabled=false&uiWhite=true&uiAlpha=0.5&uiSelectedAlpha=1&dropShadowEnabled=true&dropShadowHorizontalDistance=10&dropShadowVerticalDistance=10&paddingLeft=10&paddingRight=10&paddingTop=10&paddingBottom=10&cornerRadius=3&backToDirectoryURL=null&bannerURL=null&bannerText=null&bannerWidth=320&bannerHeight=50&showViewers=true&embedEnabled=true&chatEnabled=true&onDemandEnabled=true&programGuideEnabled=false&fullScreenEnabled=true&reportAbuseEnabled=false&gridEnabled=false&initialIsOn=true&initialIsMute=false&initialVolume=10&width=400&height=400&wmode=window" type="text/javascript"></script>

A Golden Öölaulupidu

bouffioux — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:02:00 +02:00

Photo AFP/Scanpix

To celebrate the 20th of August and the Restoration of Independence, a night song festival was organised in the evening of the 19th of August. For some reasons, one Estonian guy far away in Peking thought this was not enough and decided to celebrate this day its own way.

Gerd Kanter running the 100 metres final with the Estonian flag flying above his head…No, no that is not his speciality but only the result of his victory in discus. Happy like a young kid eating pancakes on Sunday morning, Kanter started the traditional round of the stadium with the flag but decided to spice it up a little so that Peking would not forget him: he suddenly decided to take the start of the 100m and ran.

The victory in the discus competition was already acquired after the 5^th throw but Kanter decided to do the last try, with obviously less concentration. If this last throw will not be recorded in the books, his win will definitely be. By throwing the discus at 68.82 m, he is rewarded for his work and the continuously improving results since the disappointment of Athens 2004.

Team Kanter decided to work hard after the 2004 Olympic Games and the results are quite impressive since then: 2nd at the World Championship in Helsinki in 2005 with 68m57, 2nd at the European Championship in Goteborg in 2006 with 68m03, 1st at the World Championship in Osaka in 2007 with 68m94, and now the Gold Medal in Peking 2008 with 68m82.

Besides the victory and the fact that this will give him respect for a long time, the gold medal might make him rich. Aripäev assessed that, based on the inflation and the generosity of the sponsors, this gold medal could be worth EEK 3 millions. Indeed, the government decided to award an Estonian gold medallist in Peking with EEK 1.6 million. However, this amount is not set by any official document commented Malle Engels from the Ministry of Culture.

As a comparison, Tiit Sokk and Erika Salumäe received a property and a house after their performance at the 1988 Olympic Games. Gerd Kanter should maybe ask for the same kind of present as the EEK 3 millions would be barely enough to buy a flat in Tallinn nowadays…

Anyway, Estonian flags were out and the crowd was singing at Öölaulupidu!

International Conference on Energy in Tallinn

Giovanni Angioni — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:54:00 +02:00

Eesti Pank, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and the USA think tank Global Interdependence Center (GIC) organise an international conference "Emerging Energy Markets" in Tallinn on 21 August 2008. The conference focuses on the energy policy issues of the Nordic and Baltic countries and takes place in the conference centre of the Swissôtel.

"Eesti Pank and the GIC have been cooperating in various forms for several years now. The energy policy conference is our joint project, which aims at discussing more thoroughly the changes taking place in the energy market of Europe and the region and their impact on the economic and financial policy," said Governor of Eesti Pank Andres Lipstok.

The main speakers of the conference are the Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications Juhan Parts, who treats the energy policy challenges in the Nordic and Baltic countries, and Jean-Claude Schwartz from the European Commission, who discusses Europe's changing energy policy.

The presentations are followed by three discussion panels. The first panel provides an overview of the Nordic countries' energy markets and infrastructure. In the second panel, market participants talk about the energy risks arising from the current volatile environment and possible solutions as well as about the main problems related to alternative energy sources. The afternoon panel is dedicated to trying to find answers to the questions how the growing raw material prices affect economic growth and inflation and what kind of economic policies should be pursued in the current situation. The panel discussions participants include both market participants and analysts and experts from the IMF, the USA, EU Member States and the Nordic Investment Bank.

If you wish to attend the conference, please contact Eesti Pank by telephone +372 6680 719 or e-mail Kristi.Suup@epbe.ee by August 18. The number of participants is limited.

Journalists interested in the conference are asked to notify Eesti Pank of their attendance by telephone +372 6680 719 or e-mail Kristi.Suup@epbe.ee.

The working language of the conference is English

* Read here the programme of the conference *

Ingrid Mitt
Public Relations Bureau
Phone: +372 6680 965, +372 512 68 43
E-mail: ingrid.mitt@epbe.ee

Streetwork in Tallinn aka. Lack of Respect

Giovanni Angioni — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:55:00 +02:00

After weeks of surprises the big hole in front of Deloitte bulding in Vabaduse Valjak has been almost fully covered. But we kept a last present for you.
Stupid joke, lack of respect or incredibly black humor?

From now on, we will finally be able to concentrate on our screen and we will not try to spy downstairs every ten minutes: workers will soon leaving the space outside the office and the big - and always surprising - hole is nothing more than a souvenir.

But, as something quite wierd happened on the last day some people has been working on those "famous" square meters, we decided to offer you two sgnificant pictures leaving you to choose whether we witnessed some bad black humor or some incredible lack of respect.

Postimees: Estonia Wakes Up With a War Plan

Giovanni Angioni — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:52:00 +02:00

Waking up with Postimees today offered us a bitter surprise: Estonia might be invaded by Russia and now we even know why. Luckily not when.
And, strangely, it looks like someone forgot about the European Union

“ Since we started with this local part of the magazine, we tried to avoid these kinds of articles so, the first thing I want to do here, is to apologize with all the people who will not share my views: for some days I kept everything for myself and I did not write any single line about the Russian-Georgian crisis but now everything is going too far for staying silent.

Secondly, what I need to make clear since the beginning is that what you will find here is nothing more than my personal opinion and not cafebabel.com position on the current events. ”

I do not understand what people want and which sense of belonging they have anymore.
I grew up being as much European as I could, participating to European projects, living in as many different EU countries as I could, sharing my experiences with my fellows Europeans and learning from their ones.
I went to schools explaining what EU is and which are the advantages of being part of one of the most ambitious political projects in world’s history, I gave my contribution to bring people to Brussels and make them feel a bit more part of a mechanism that needs to be understood for being accepted and I started to contribute to cafebabel.com as much as I could exactly because I shared the founders dream of the construction of a pan-European public opinion.

And I do not think I have been doing it simply for being victim of any effective propaganda machine: I studied Spinelli and Delors dream and I started to see myself reflected in it.

I started to think that if Europe exists, it cannot exist without me. Because its history, its culture and its values are my history, my culture and my values.

But, growing up and working on and with it, I learnt that being part of the European Union does not mean only getting advantages and positive things. It means also being aware of its risks, its challenges and, why not, its limitations.

Something everyone should learn how to deal with.

Then the Russian invasion started.
And someone, freely, chose to put the EU on standby for acting as a single entity, detached from any kind of community.

Since years, here in EU, we have been struggling for building a Common Foreign Security Policy: so far we did not succeed to get exactly where we wanted, but the fact that now if anyone wanted to “call Europe” he should dial Mr. Javier Solana’s number is already an enormous achievement.

But, again, the Russian invasion started.

And while Mr. Sarkozy started his diplomatic talks with Mr. Putin – or Medvedev ? - on behalf of the Union he is representing during this semester, someone else decided that it is time for pushing on the gas and try to bring the already though relation between Russia and EU neighboring countries to its most dangerous limit.

Sometimes it is almost populist to get back to April 2007 for explaining how problematic the relations between Russian-rooted and Estonian citizens is in our country but, today, I guess it can be a good starting point. Because, differently than the rest of the EU, everyone here has all the violence of those days still deep inside.
No one forgot what happened as no one will ever forget what this country was before the Nineties.

But, as we all have to live and share the same space, something should be done for explaining to people how to accept each other and get rid of those dangerous emotions left from a terrible past.

Not an easy task, this is sure.
But what would the politician job be, without such challenges?
Which message are journalists and opinion makers supposed to offer to the population?

In the last days I have seen, red and heard local politicians simply saying what their voters expected them to. Someone said that Russia did not invade South Ossetia, someone immediately jumped against Russia, someone sent people to buy Georgian goods for supporting the country and someone forgot to ask Mr. Saakashvili why he kept the European flag behind him during his speech. Details.

Then I opened today’s Postimees.

At pages 6 and 7 Mr. Vahur Koorits writes an interesting article about something which is unlikely to be happening as long as people do not keep pushing for it: a Russian attack to Estonia.

With the precious help of Leo Kunnas and a wonderful map, we are enlightened about a possible imminent future: we know from where we will get the tanks, from where the Russian air force and from where NATO troops will come. Thanks to this brilliant analysis we even know that the trip between Poland and Estonia will take between 30 and 60 days so, please people, help the soldiers on defending the country in the mean time.

Or, better to say, get ready to defend Tallinn because the rest of the country – as often happens up here – will not be that important.

Now, seriously, is it a kind of expired and stinky April’s fools joke or what?

What is the need to write about an imminent war which is NOT happening?

What happened to the common sense of that people who should be trying to compact in such a delicate moment?

Estonian economy is sick. Someone say crisis, someone said recession, someone else just said that it will pass. What is true is that it is not going fine anymore.

People are unhappy, they have to pay loans back sacrifying half of their salary and now they are somehow worried that a terrible kind of past will come back.

We are less than 2 Million people in this country and, let’s accept it or not, a considerable percentage is Russian-rooted and not really integrated into the national system. Opinion makers job is to help everyone to accept each other, not to split people in different sides.

And, in this sense, I am sorry my dear Postimees but you committed suicide today.

What I would like to ask to all the readers who got till this point is: what happened to the people who should avoid all this?
Who should help people to feel more secure and safe if not our politicians?

Why in Postimees map the EU flag is totally absent?

Why Estonian politicians do not try to raise everything at the EU level for using diplomacy instead of anything else?

Why do they keep ignoring all our efforts targeted on our future CFSP by signing visa free agreement with US and taking whatever position they want in they foreign policy?

European Union is a great project: full of advantages but also of costs everyone should know. Anyone has been invited but, as it is an union of States, no one will ever be obliged to stay in if they do not want.

Or they do not accept its conditions.

The Curse of Vabaduse Valjak - Rock'n'Bones!

Giovanni Angioni — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:34:00 +02:00

We tried not to push the topic for a while but nothing seems to be seriously changed: even though the streetworks are going on and cars are allowed to pass in front of the city hall again, bones and skulls keep coming out from the dust. And someone seems to be enjoying it!

We gave up.
For around two weeks we thought that our anatomical sightseeing was over: a big white tent covered the works in Vabaduse Valjak from our eyes and we did not have a clue of what had been happening inside there.

Or maybe we just acted as we did not know because, thanks to a not too strict surveillance system we managed many times to get into the covered area and "spy" the works.

Let's be clear: nothing bad in that.
We have been observing and, as we did not bother anyone, we have not been stopped.
A matter of politeness I would suggest.

But today we decided to come back with some new reports from the area and we wanted to show you some pictures as it seems that bones are still where they were before and some not-too-respectful people had a strange kind of fun on disposing them outside the big hole.

Understanding Estonia: Singing Revolution

bouffioux — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +02:00

Discovering a country it is not only travelling around and enjoying the landscape. It is also understanding the culture, learning (at least trying to) the language, and above all knowing the history of a country as it is the basis of people's behaviour, hates, hopes, beliefs...

The Singing Revolution on DVD

I had already heard of the Singing Revolution, or Laulev Revolutsioon in Estonian, the first time I came to Estonia in 2005 but it came back recently as a documentary-movie was released about it. I was hanging around in Stockman and I saw on the top sales this DVD. I decided to buy it since I wanted to know more about this period which led to the independence of Estonia.

The Singing Revolution or Laulev Revolutsioon in Estonian is the name given to the events between 1986 and 1991 leading to the independence of Estonia. The term was first used by the Estonian activist Heinz Valk in an article published after the singing demonstrations night of 10-11 June 1988.

It is also the name of the DVD of the movie realised by James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty about this non-violent revolution during which Estonians gathered and fought to free themselves from the soviet yoke. Thanks to interviews and archives images the movies gives a thorough overview of the events between 1986 and 1991 leading to the independence without any drop of blood.

A live history lesson

A DVD to be broadcasted in all Estonians schools so that people won’t forget their past and keep respecting values people would have given their lives for. For all the others, it is a must-see movie-documentary to get to know better this little country and its unique history. The way Estonians obtained their independence by singing tells a lot about this all times oppressed but peaceful people. On top of that the Estonian songs are full of emotions and very powerful, giving you goose bumps and for the most sensitive probably some teardrops…

The official website of the movie http://singingrevolution.com/will tell you more aboutthe history, the music and obviously the trailer of film.

The next Laulupidu will tale place next year in July. More information on http://www.laulupidu.ee/

As an appetizer, here is the most beautiful of the Estonian songs featured in the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPHqqZlTkjc