The Estonian National Cabinet

Dear Delegates,

Welcome to Yale Model Government Europe! My name is Elisabeth Siegel (please do call me Lis), and I will be your director for the Estonian Cabinet. Through this Cabinet, you’ll get the chance to debate relevant and contemporary issues affecting the unique nation-state of Estonia. Geographically and culturally speaking, Estonia sits at the crossroads of East and West, with the lowest population of any country in the European Union, yet also one of the fastest-growing economies and advanced IT sectors. The significance of Estonia within the European system as well as the world at large only waxes with time, which gives the issues we debate even more significance.

A little more about me: I am a half Chinese sophomore at Pauli Murray College within Yale University, aiming to major in Global Affairs and Modern Middle Eastern Studies. I come from Northern California, however, around an hour from San Francisco — I’m definitely not used to the snow yet — and international relations has always been a passion of mine. Within the Yale International Relations Association, I’ve been involved with a number of conferences, particularly on the Yale Model United Nations’ secretariat and chairing for the Security Council Simulation at Yale, and I also edit for the Yale Review of International Studies. Outside of YIRA, I’m the Vice President of Yale Students of Salaam, an organization that provides in-school and in-home tutoring support for newly arrived refugees in New Haven. I’m also the president of Middle East Resolution through Education Action and Dialogue. For fun, I enjoy magazine design, reading, attending all sorts of concerts and nerding out over modern Chinese films.

The topics we will be covering are incredibly important, and not just for Estonia. What we deliberate upon will have important ramifications for both Estonia’s future development and progress, as well as setting a precedent within the European Union and the increasingly interconnected international community. 2017 has been a fascinating year in the realms of geopolitics and internal politics; I look forward to discussing the micro- and macro-impact of contemporary world affairs on Estonian society, as well as what continued Estonian development means for the future of Europe.

I’m really excited to get to know you come November. If you have any questions, concerns, or desires to chat with me at all before then, feel free to contact me at elisabeth.siegel@yale.edu.

Sincerely,
Lis

The Estonian Cabinet is headed by the Prime Minister, and contains the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Public Administration, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure, the Minister of Entrepreneurship, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Culture, the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Education and Research, the Minister of the Environment, the Minister of Social Protection, the Minister of Health and Labor, and the Minister of Rural Affairs.

According to The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia, the Estonian Cabinet executes Estonian foreign and domestic policy, first determined by the Estonian Parliament (aka Riigikogu); coordinates the work of government agencies; administers the execution of laws enacted by the Riigikogu; introduces bills and international treaties to the Riigikogu for consideration; regulates the implementation of certain laws; manages inter-state relations; enacts a state of emergency given a natural disaster of epidemic warranting one; and performs other executive duties relevant to governance and the constitution.

The incumbent cabinet of Estonia has been in power since November 23, 2016, headed by Prime Minister Jüri Ratas.

Estonia declared independence in 1918, but the USSR re-occupied Estonia in 1940 and supplanted its previous de facto constitution. In 1992, Estonia enacted the fourth iteration of its constitution, which is still in force today.

Topic History

Most non-citizens living in Estonia do so as a result of the time during which Russians occupied Estonia. Non-citizens often apply for Estonian citizenship, but the rules for doing so have changed since the collapse of the USSR to gradually become less stringent. Originally, the citizenship was a great hurdle for many ethnic Russians living in Estonia, because of its emphasis on fluency in Estonian language and knowledge of Estonian culture, all of which were not priorities during the time of the USSR.Estonia has historically been a pluralistic society, with multiple and numerous minority groups within its borders. As religion plays a minimal role in Estonian society, minority groups in Estonia are considered so because of first and foremost their ethnicity.

The government of Estonia enacted the Estonian Law on Cultural Autonomy in 1925. The law was designed to protect the status of minorities in Estonia; essentially, people who chose to identify as a minority nationality that had more than 3,000 members could then collectively establish cultural self-government. These self-governments would manage the public schooling of the area, as well as other educational endeavors to enrich and maintain the minority group’s heritage and traditional activities. At the time, this law was considered phenomenal and was celebrated in the international community, and this status was taken on by Baltic Germans until 1939, and Jews until 1940.

Though as mentioned before, Estonia has a precedent of numerous ethnic minorities living within its borders, including other Europeans such as Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Finns, Latvians, Swedes, and Jews, as well as some small enclaves of East Asians and Caucasians, the USSR’s absorption of Estonia had the biggest impact on Estonian demographics in history.

Russian influence on Estonian history has been substantial even before the USSR. Throughout the Russian Tsarist early twentieth century, the education system of Estonia from elementary school through university was conducted entirely in Russian, and the effects of Russification were felt most acutely in the fields of culture.

During the time of the USSR, large numbers of ethnic Russians were incentivized to move to ethnically non-Russian areas, such as Estonia. Repression of ethnic Estonians followed, including the deportation of Estonian citizens, the censorship of Estonian language writing and media, and the persecution of Estonian organizations and activists. Estonian language knowledge was not necessary for Russian immigrants to learn in order to move to Estonia, and Estonian language and culture were sidelined during the time of the USSR as more of an emphasis was placed on Russification and the use of Russian in daily life, business, and governance.

Estonia left the Soviet Union in 1992, during the historical event known as the “Singing Revolution.” From the end of World War II to the end of the USSR, the percentage of Estonians in the population of Estonia has gone from 97% to 68%.

Most non-citizens living in Estonia do so as a result of the time during which Russians occupied Estonia. Non-citizens often apply for Estonian citizenship, but the rules for doing so have changed since the collapse of the USSR to gradually become less stringent. Originally, the citizenship was a great hurdle for many ethnic Russians living in Estonia, because of its emphasis on fluency in Estonian language and knowledge of Estonian culture, all of which were not priorities during the time of the USSR.

The population of Russians in Estonia right now is estimated at around 320,000, or around 24 percent of Estonia. Most Russians currently live in the capital city Tallinn, or in the Northeast cities of Narva and Kohtla-Jarve. Although some settlements of Russians are relatively old, the majority of Russians live in Estonia as a result of Soviet-era resettlement and immigration.

Several investigations by human rights organizations including Amnesty International have concluded that linguistic minorities within Estonia, particularly Russians, experience acute discrimination and marginalization within modern Estonia.

Current Situation

Estonia is a signatory to multiple UN treaties concerning human rights and the rights of ethnic minorities, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, and more.

Amnesty International published a startling report in 2007 that advocated for an end to discrimination against linguistic minorities — particularly Russophone residents — in Estonia. They alleged that in particular problems remained with the Language Inspectorate and the implementation of the Language Law in Estonia. Thirteen percent of ethnic minority groups were unemployed in Estonia versus five percent of Estonians. According to the Child Rights International Network, “The citizenship and language requirements for employment both in the public and in the private sector limit access to employment for Russian speakers.”

On the other hand, Estonia faces a shrinking population, and a shrinking number of Estonians within its own borders. They face the population trend of “aging,” with less children being born, and more and more of the population growing old. Since Estonian independence from the USSR, the population has declined sharply, resulting in upward of a net loss of 225,000 people.

More socioeconomic problems pertaining to citizenship have emerged for Estonia since independence from the USSR. The population decline has resulted in problems for employment and has called the migration and citizenship policies into question. Skilled workers often desire to emigrate from Estonia due to neighboring countries’ higher salaries, especially those countries that weren’t part of the USSR.

According to Estonica, the Estonian-source encyclopedia on Estonian culture and history, “Russian culture in Estonia has often been intentionally separated from Estonian national culture...Russian culture can be characterized by a heightened degree of ideology, which caused — and still causes — difficulties in the communication and coexistence between different cultures.”

The capital of Estonia, Tallinn, has experienced some ethnic and linguistic tensions in recent years. The population of Russian speakers in the capital is estimated to be as high as 37 percent. In 2007, several Russian-speakers rioted over the Estonian government's decision to move a Soviet war memorial. According to the Estonian government, the Russian government played a part in spreading false news about the destruction of the monument, or about the desecration of the graves that lay underneath the monument. Allegedly, the Russian Embassy in Estonia played a role in organizing the riots.

Most of the Russian minority of Estonia is perceived as not very receptive to Russia's foreign policy or machinations in other Baltic states, and so the Estonian government is not afraid of the tension evolving into any sort of separatist movement.

The Estonian government must come to terms with problems of citizenship and non-citizenship, especially with the question of ethnic minorities and the discrimination that linguistic minorities face in day to day life, as well as how to deal with population decline and stagnation.

In the Estonian cabinet, we will focus on issues pertaining to the promulgation of Estonian identity in the face of shrinking population size while maintaining equality and an environment free of discrimination for linguistic minorities. We will wrestle with issues like the legacy of the USSR that still impacts the psyche and public consciousness of Estonians today, and try to formulate a strategy that values Estonian national identity while preserving equal rights for all its citizens.

Bloc Positions

There are many different perspectives that each member of the Estonian cabinet could address with these issues of population. Each cabinet minister would have their own distinct priorities stemming from their role, as each distinct choice made by the cabinet would have a different impact on each department of government.

For instance, the Minister of Culture, by nature of their role, would be most obviously invested in successful integration of linguistic and ethnic minorities into Estonian society, as it relates directly to their job. Looking deeper, however, reveals that the Minister of Education and Science, the Minister of Interior Affairs, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Social Affairs all play very important roles in the processes of integration, and the prioritizations of the Minister of Interior Affairs within the integration process would likely (though not always) diverge from the priorities of the Minister of Justice.

The cabinet itself is currently divided between the conservative Pro Patria and Res Public party, the Estonian Centre party, which currently is led by the Estonian prime minister, as well as the social-democratic Social Democratic party. 75 percent of Russians living in Estonia support the Centre party. The Centre party tends to lean left on certain economic issues, though its stances on other social issues have also given it a reputation for being populist. All of these parties often do not advocate for the social causes for which the majority of parties leaning in the same ideological direction are known.

The biggest ideological split within the cabinet is the split between the emphasis of the affirmation and active support of Estonian culture, heritage, identity, and majority within Estonia, in the face of its declining population, and how that can be balanced with a pluralistic approach to a society with a large presence of linguistic minority groups.

Estonia’s population struggles as well as the recent historical context of Soviet occupation and its repression of Estonian language and culture created the need for an emphasis on revival and promotion of Estonian. The cabinet will need to decide how to balance between the fostering and promulgation of Estonian language and culture and ensuring protections for the livelihoods of ethnic and linguistic minorities, in a way that is advantageous for departments of the cabinet and furthers Estonia’s overall interests, whatever they may be.

Questions to consider

• How does Estonia define a "minority" in its borders, and what specific rights do ethnic and/or linguistic minorities currently have? 

• What have been the most recent legislative changes executed by the Estonian cabinet related to citizenship law? What has been effective? What has been ineffective? 

• What do human rights organizations have to say about Estonia overall? 

• What role do linguistic minorities play in Estonia within your specific cabinet role?