Estonia’s parliament opens autumn session with budget and oversight tasks

Estonia’s Riigikogu, the country’s parliament, began its autumn session, with Speaker Lauri Hussar urging lawmakers to put Estonia’s interests above those of their political parties, ERR reported.

President Alar Karis said that a president doing his job must be prepared for criticism from members of parliament. He said he had been criticised both for failing to defend the majority’s right to make decisions strongly enough during parliamentary obstruction and for not doing enough to protect the opposition’s rights.

“The majority must have the right to decide, but explaining decisions and making them understandable to society requires more than simply having more MPs vote for them than against them,” Karis said.

He added that the opposition’s role was not to block majority decisions, but that its pressure could ensure that the need for a law had been established, alternatives had been considered and counterarguments had been taken seriously.

Hussar identified the election of a new chancellor of justice and the adoption of next year’s state budget as the parliament’s main tasks.

As the government may need more support from the opposition, the Reform Party is prepared to offer concessions from the state budget in return. The party’s parliamentary group leader, Pillak, described the approach as “sausage for sausage”, an expression referring to an exchange of concessions.

Pillak said the budget would contain many good proposals, but that the government could not spend beyond its means. He said Estonia needed to be defended, economic growth needed to accelerate and people’s incomes needed to increase.

With elections approaching, Pillak said political parties had a greater interest in advancing their own agendas. However, he said it would not be reasonable for the opposition to increase obstruction and block necessary decisions on defence, the economy and people’s ability to cope financially.

He said he believed the parties could find the necessary consensus on decisions related to Estonia’s defence, economic growth and people’s livelihoods.