Estonia in 2009

45,227 sq km (17,462 sq mi)
(2009 est.): 1,340,000
President Toomas Hendrik Ilves
Prime Minister Andrus Ansip

Estonian trade union members stage a demonstration in Tallinn on June 3, 2009, in opposition to government-mandated changes to labour laws and unemployment benefits.Timu Nisametdinov—NIPA/APThe distressing state of the economy dominated Estonian political life during 2009. Disagreements over proposed budget cuts led to the decision by Prime Minister Andrus Ansip in May to dismiss the Social Democratic Party from the ruling coalition—a move that reduced the three-party coalition to a minority government. In elections to the European Parliament in June, Ansip’s Reform Party was bested by its main rival, the Centre Party, led by Tallinn Mayor Edgar Savisaar, as well as by Indrek Tarand, an independent candidate. In local government elections in October, the Centre Party won an absolute majority in Tallinn and nearly a third of the vote in the entire country, though the Reform Party retained its leading position in Tartu. Turnout in both elections reached record levels.

All of the important economic indicators were negative in 2009. There was a massive decline in GDP and real-estate values, while unemployment rose to double digits during the first quarter of the year. In addition, state revenue, wages, retail sales, and foreign direct investment all fell considerably. The government sought to take advantage of the drop in inflation to move closer to adoption of the euro, making painful budget cuts—including politically sensitive ones in social services—in an effort to keep the budget deficit below 3% of GDP as required by the EU for euro adoption.

Estonia continued to be an active participant among NATO forces in Afghanistan, but its reputation in the alliance was blemished by the revelation that Herman Simm, a senior Estonian defense official, had spied for Russia for more than a decade. Simm was convicted of treason in an Estonian court in February. Despite the Simm case, relations with Russia thawed slightly, though for both environmental and political reasons, Estonia remained critical of the Russian-German Nord Stream pipeline project—a gas pipeline that was to be built across the Baltic Sea.