Lauristin says freedom shaped Siim Kallas’s life

Marju Lauristin, emeritus professor at the University of Tartu’s Institute of Social Sciences, told ERR’s Aktuaalne kaamera news programme that Siim Kallas’s core value was standing up for freedom and taking risks without allowing fear to stop him.

“For me, Siim was not only a public figure. We had been friends since university. I remember him as a young and passionate student in Tartu in the late 1960s, when the so-called Komsomol revolt took place. Students took to the streets in response to events in Czechoslovakia, and Siim was already one of the leaders,” Lauristin said.

“Standing up and rebelling for freedom was the main feature and core value of his life. Siim was not a liberal because of some political game. He believed wholeheartedly in freedom, right from his student days.”

Lauristin said Kallas’s studies in finance led him to view economic freedom as the foundation of freedom more broadly. When it became possible to discuss Estonia’s economy in practical terms, Kallas was one of the four authors of IME, or Self-Managing Estonia.

“It was a breakthrough. The question of whether Estonia could be economically independent as an independent state and succeed internationally was very important to Siim. It was not a theoretical question but a practical one. He addressed it practically, and the biggest step for which he will remain in Estonian history was bringing back the Estonian kroon under his leadership. Siim Kallas was, is and will remain the father of the Estonian kroon,” Lauristin said.

Lauristin recalled that she was serving in the Supreme Soviet at the time and had to help pass the law on the Estonian kroon. She said she and Kallas discussed how to organise the adoption of the currency law efficiently, quickly and decisively because the currency reform had to be carried out rapidly to prevent speculation.

She also praised Kallas’s determination to defend the kroon when others opposed the plan, including the Moscow central bank and Western advisers who said that it was impossible for a small country’s currency to become internationally convertible immediately.

“Siim insisted that it was possible and had to be possible,” Lauristin said.

According to Lauristin, Kallas is remembered as a politician of independent Estonia. She said this was a logical continuation of his life’s work, through which he continued to work for Estonia’s economic success.

Lauristin said Kallas’s defining characteristic as a politician was his willingness to reach strategic agreements with political forces whose views did not match his own.

She recalled that she and Kallas had argued throughout their careers because she was a social democrat and he led the Reform Party. However, when the decision was made to exempt companies’ reinvested profits from income tax, Kallas supported Social Democratic Party leader Eiki Nestor’s proposal to introduce unemployment insurance to secure the Social Democrats’ participation in the government.

“It was a major strategic agreement: income tax exemption and unemployment insurance together. We have few politicians capable of making major strategic decisions for the future and Estonia’s stable development,” Lauristin said.