In 1994 she moved into politics, becoming a member of the Riigikogu and the parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, as well as chair of the Estonian-French parliamentary friendship group from 1996. She joined the Estonian Reform Party in 1995, becoming their Foreign Affairs Spokesperson. With the party's affiliation to the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR), she rose to the post of Vice President in 1999, as well as Leader of the LDR group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), to which she had been head of the Estonian Parliamentary Delegation since 1996.