BONJOUR L'ESTONIE

Hungary and Poland to adopt Euro in 2013 !

By Elizabeth Konstantinova

Euro-adoption targets for most central and eastern European nations have been pushed back as far as 2013 and 2014 because of accelerating inflation, said UniCredit Group SpA, Italy's largest bank.

Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, which joined the European Union in 2004 will be able to adopt the single currency by 2013, UniCredit said in an e-mailed statement today. Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the 27-nation bloc in 2007, will meet terms for euro adoption by 2014, the bank forecast.

"The prospect of euro adoption is an important anchor for most countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007,'' Unicredit said. "Meeting the inflation criterion poses a special challenge, because of the price pressure observed almost all over central and eastern Europe.''

The remains of Prime Minister Jüri Uluots to arrive in Estonia

Stenbock House – Today at 10, the remains of the former Prime Minister acting as President of the Republic, Jüri Uluots (1890-1945), and his family will arrive in Estonia.

At the D-terminal of the Port of Tallinn, a military honours ceremony will be held, which will be attended by the relatives of J. Uluots, representatives of the Estonian state and members of the fraternity Rotalia. The keeper of the consistency of the Republic of Estonia will arrive back home.

President Konstantin Päts appointed Jüri Uluots as Prime Minister in 1939. In relation to the deportation of President Päts, Uluots as the last official Prime Minister became acting head of the state – Prime Minister acting as President of the Republic. In September 1944, he assigned the Government of the Republic to office, led by Otto Tief. On 19 September 1944, J. Uluots escaped to Sweden with his family, where he died on 9 January 1945. The Government of the Republic operated in exile until 7 October 1992 and was one of the main pillars that allowed to restore the independence of Estonia, relying on legal continuity.

The remains of Jüri Uluots, his wife Anette (d. 1995) and son Erik (d. 2006) will be reburied to Kirbla cemetery in Lääne County on 31 August. The remains were exhumed on Monday, 12 May, at Stockholm Forest Cemetery. The consul of the Republic of Estonia, the representative of the State Chancellery and the representative of the Estonian community in Sweden were present at the exhumation. The event was documented on video and photos for the National Archives.

Up to now, the Estonian heads of state who have been reburied into the homeland soil from abroad are Konstantin Päts (1990), Aleksander Warma (2002) and August Rei (2006).

See more about Jüri Uluots at the website of the President of the Republic :
http://www.president.ee/en/estonia/heads.php?gid=81975

Valitsuse kommunikatsioonibüroo briifinguruum
http://www.valitsus.ee/brf/
press@riik.ee

Estonia hopes for early EU-Russia talks on new ties pact

Estonia and Latvia on Monday expressed hopes for early talks between the European Union and Russia on signing a new partnership accord, according to Baltic News Service (BNS) reports reaching here from Tallinn.

Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told BNS that he hopes the EU and Russia will launch their planned talks on forging a new strategic "Partnership and Cooperation Agreement" as soon as possible, and suggested that the talks be initiated during the EU-Russia summit in Siberia from June 26-27.

Referring to fellow EU member Lithuania's objections over the issue, Paet said all problems should be addressed via talks, while acknowledging that the negotiations will not be easy.

Paet's Latvian counterpart Maris Riekstins echoed his view, saying that direct talks were the best solution to problems blocking EU-Russia relations.

While saying that Lithuania's objections and demands are crucial to the 27 EU states, Riekstins expressed hope the bloc will find a way to allay Lithuania's doubts on the matter.

Source : Xinhua

NATO cannot protect Estonia from Russia

Toomas Hõbemägi

Estonian foreign policy makers are doing everything to hide the fact that NATO is not capable to protect Estonia from a possible attack from Russia.

Postimees writes that the biggest secret kept from Estonians by foreign policy makers is that NATO has no security guarantee for Estonia and is not going to protect Estonia from a possible Russian aggression, but sees its role in only re-conquering Estonia from the Russians.

If Russia were to attack Estonia, it could take months before NATO could put together a meaningful counterattack. Today NATO even has no specific military plan for such an event, writes Postimees.

If Russia were to attack Estonia, it could take months before NATO could put together a meaningful counterattack. Today NATO even has no specific military plan for such an event, writes Postimees.

Parliament to finalize ratification of Lisbon Treaty next month

The Estonian parliament will decide in June whether or not to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, the document intended to reform the European Union.
Väino Linde, the chairman of the constitutional committee said that the bill on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty would have its second and last reading on June 11. He said it would be clear by that date whether any acts must be amended after the endorsement of the treaty.
The aim of the treaty is to strengthen the effectiveness and democratic legitimacy of the European Union and to increase its unity. In Estonia the document will be ratified by the parliament as it is an international agreement that may not be put to a referendum. .
According to the Foreign Ministry also the other member countries of the European Union will overwhelmingly ratify the treaty in parliament. Until the present it has been done by Hungary, Slovenia, Malta, Malta, France, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Portugal and Denmark.
The document will enter into force from next January if all the 27 member countries have ratified it and deposited the ratification letters with the Italian government. Otherwise the treaty will enter into force on the month following the depositing of the last ratification letter.

Cyber attackers strike again

In cooperation with BNS

TALLINN - Days before the May 9th Russian Victory Day celebrations, members of the 10th parliament of Estonia were hit with a flurry of cyber attacks from Russia.

Marko Mihkelson, a member of the Estonian Parliament from the Pro Patria and Res Publica faction, said members of the previous Estonian parliament fell victime to the attacks on Sunday.

"E-mail messages with the .ru domain name speak to us about the Bronze Soldier, Victory Day, Estonia's "pro-fascism" and other well-known repertory. A set of e-mail addresses of the members of our 10th parliament is widely circulating in the Russian cyberspace, and so it is not very difficult to launch such an attack," Mihkelson wrote in his blog.

He said that contrary to last year's spam attacks, when the contents of the e-mails were largely the same, Sunday's texts were different although with the same undertone. "The next days until May 9 will show whether we have to do with some kind of a wider action or the effort gradually peters out," Mihkelson said.

Dozens of members of parliament mainly from the Reform Party and the conservative Pro Patria and Res Publica Union received such e-mails during last year's April disturbances and a few months earlier, after the parliament passed an act on prohibited structures.

For ethnic Estonians the monument symbolizes the nearly 50 years of Soviet occupation of Estonia, while many Russian-speakers see it only as a symbol of the Russian role in the liberation of Europe of Nazis in World War II.

Estonia reopens trial against Bronze Soldier defenders

TALLINN - The trial against the people charged with plotting  mass riots in Tallinn in late April 2007 has re-opened in Estonia on Monday after a three-month break.

     On the dock are leaders and activists of the Nightwatch public movement campaigning  for protection of the monument to Soviet soldiers who liberated Tallinn from the Nazis. The defendants are Dmitry Linter, Maksim Reva and Dmitry Klensky, and Mark Siryk, the Estonian leader of the Russian youth movement, Nashi.

     The trial opened on January 14 and continued in total for two weeks, excluding a 6-day break. Another break was announced on January 31.

     European MPs Tatyana Zhdanok from Latvia and Zahra Wagenknecht from Germany who were at the trial said that the case is political, though it is seen as criminal in Estonia.

     On April 26-28 Estonia was hit by mass disturbances after the government decided to move the remains of the Soviet soldiers from the mass grave on the Tonismagi hill in downtown Tallinn, along with the war memorial erected in their honor, to the Military cemetery. The Russian-speaking population in Estonia saw these steps as an insult to the memory of fallen soldiers. Riots also took place in Kohtla-Jarve in north-eastern Estonia which has a predominantly Russian-speaking population.
     Around 1,200 people were arrested and around 50 were injured during the riots. Dmitry Ganin, a Russian national, was killed.  The disturbances then grew into mass riots and acts of vandalism.

EU warns 9 countries over emission permit failures

BRUSSELS - The European Commission said on Tuesday it was sending written warnings to nine member states for failing to issue emissions permits on time.

"The European Commission is sending nine member states a first written warning for failing to issue its industrial permits in line with the integrated pollution prevention and control," the EU executive said a statement.

The nine countries are Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.

Reporting by Darren Ennis

High inflation key obstacle on EU newcomers' path to eurozone

BRUSSELS - Most EU newcomers from central and eastern Europe have recorded much higher than allowed price hikes over the past year, with only Slovakia meeting the price stability criterion to join the euro, the European Commission is to say today (7 May).

The report finds that Slovakia has achieved a 'high degree of sustainable convergence' and therefore it is considered ready to adopt the euro in 2009," says the draft document, reported earlier by EUobserver.

The convergence report evaluates the economic and fiscal policy development of the EU member states that are not part of the bloc's monetary union. While the UK and Denmark have an exemption from the euro, the remaining countries of the 27-nation EU have a legal obligation to join.

For the central and eastern European countries, the price stability condition has proved to be the key obstacle on their path to the common currency area and the Brussels figures show that there could be a long pause in the eurozone's enlargement after Slovakia's entry.

Individual EU countries must not veto agreement talks with Russia

TALLINN -  Estonia supports Lithuania in its demand concerning the beginning of talks on a new agreement between Russia and the European Union but is opposed to individual countries using the veto right on the issue, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet has said.
      "We are now speaking of the beginning of talks in order to achieve something someday in general. It is our stance that these talks could begin," he said on the morning news of Estonian TV on Friday.
      The  right to veto or block EU resolutions can be used "only in an extreme case, because if it is overused, there is the danger of its devaluation," Paet said.
      In  his  opinion, the use of veto is leading the European Union in the opposite direction from its main foreign policy objective - instead of developing and applying a common line it is leading to bilateral talks between Russia and some EU member-state.
      In this context Paet also spoke against the formation of a bloc of East European states in  the EU advocating their specific interests "because  then  there is no guarantee that some other association acting against our interests is not going to be formed in the EU."
      If any future EU resolution is unacceptable for Estonia, it will use the veto right, he said. "But there has not been such a case in the four years of our EU membership," he said.
According to the minister several problems of practical significance should be resolved in developing the agreement on strategic partnership between Russia and EU. For Estonia, for instance, these would be the cancellation of high customs duties on Russian timber, high railway tariffs and the construction of a bridge across the Narva border river," he said.