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FM AMEMBASSY TALLINN
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INFO EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS TALLINN 000005 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE SIPDIS 
 
C O R R E C T E D  C O P Y (ADDED EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE) 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL EU RU EN
SUBJECT: ESTONIA: PRESIDENT AND PM DISCUSS RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA AND 
ESTONIA'S FUTURE 
 
 
1.(U) Summary.  After visiting the Embassy to sign the condolence 
book for President Ford, both President Ilves and Prime Minister 
Ansip stayed to chat over coffee.  Both expressed optimism that the 
March parliamentary elections would produce a better government. 
Ansip stated that his Reform Party would never agree to serve in a 
government with Savisaar as Prime Minister or surrender the Foreign 
Ministry to Savisaar's Center Party.  Both Ilves and Ansip were also 
highly critical of the current direction of Russian policy. 
Finally, both the President and the PM believe that Estonia's labor 
shortage is a problem, though Ansip said he thought a greater 
problem is Estonian workers' lower productivity.  Neither was eager 
to see Estonia open up to economic migrants from Russia.  End 
Summary. 
 
--------------------- 
RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA 
--------------------- 
 
2.(SBU) During his visit to the Embassy, President Toomas Hendrik 
Ilves mentioned that he has tried but failed to come up with any 
rational explanation for the Russian Government's increasingly 
anti-Estonian rhetoric over the last few months.  His only 
conclusion is that Russia is simply behaving irrationally. 
President Ilves then quoted an ambassador from an EU country with 
whom he met in Moscow while he was Estonia's Foreign Minister.  The 
ambassador told Ilves that "Russia is a county in need of 
psychiatric assistance rather than economic aid."  President Ilves 
said that in face of these irrational Russian attacks the best 
policy choice for Estonia is to remain calm and not react. Ilves 
said that current Russian behavior underlines why it is so important 
that Estonia be as fully integrated as possible into both NATO and 
the EU. 
 
3.(SBU) During his visit to the Embassy, Prime Minister Andrus Ansip 
said he was grateful that Ilves is president because he carries with 
him no Soviet baggage as he grew up in the United States.  This 
allows President Ilves to make such statements as Estonia would be 
best off ignoring Russia's attacks and not have to worry about the 
domestic political consequences of alienating Estonian voters that 
Ansip would face if he made similar remarks.  Ansip said that after 
Russia's President Putin met with EU leaders in Finland and managed 
to offend just about every major European leader in the process, 
Estonia is no longer one of the lone voices in the EU pointing out 
Russia's irrational behavior. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
MARCH PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS AND THE CENTER PARTY 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
4.(SBU) As he has indicated in a spate of year-end interviews, Ilves 
said he will offer whichever party gains the greatest number of 
votes in the upcoming parliamentary elections in March the first 
opportunity to form a new government - even if that should be the 
Center Party.  Under Estonian law, the winner will have two weeks in 
which to form a government.  President Ilves doesn't believe the 
elections will result in any radical changes in Estonian politics as 
the Center Party and the like-minded People's Union are unlikely to 
win enough seats to be able to govern on their own. In the unlikely 
event that such a coalition is formed, however, Ilves said that 
"unfortunately" he would have to become "much more active" in order 
to provide balance.  But barring such an occurrence, Ilves believes 
that even if the Center Party's is part of the next government, its 
populist approach would have to be balanced out by other 
right-leaning parties in the coalition. 
 
5.(SBU) PM Ansip said that his party's goal in the upcoming 
elections is to win more votes than any other party.  Only after the 
elections will his Reform Party begin thinking about possible 
coalition partners.  While PM Ansip seemed happy with a recent poll 
that indicated that 37% of those polled would like to see him remain 
as PM, he expressed his concern that this support must first 
translate into votes for the Reform Party.  When asked to speculate 
about potential coalition partners after the March elections, PM 
Ansip mentioned the possibility of a coalition with the other major 
right-of-center party: the newly joined Pro Patria and Res Publica 
Union.  But PM Ansip did not rule out a new coalition with the 
Center party.  However, he stated quite clearly that Reform would 
never agree to a coalition with the Center Party if this would make 
Center's Edgar Savisaar PM, nor would Reform ever agree to give 
Center the Foreign Minister's portfolio. 
 
6.(SBU) As PM Ansip is currently in coalition with Edgar Savisaar's 
Center Party, his criticism of the Center Party was relatively 
tempered.  Perhaps another reason that PM Ansip likes Ilves is that 
the President is able to speak his mind more freely on this topic as 
well.  Ilves called Edgar Savisaar Estonia's Hugo Chavez, a cheap 
populist.  Ilves stated that it is this populism that keeps Savisaar 
going.  Elsewhere, someone like Savisaar - someone who taped his 
political opponents back in the early 1990s while Minister of the 
Interior - would have been discredited long ago.  President Ilves 
also implied that he does not trust Savisaar's Russian contacts, 
 
pointing out the as the current Minister of Economics Savisaar 
regularly meets with Russian officials during his trips to Russia 
but never brings along anyone from the Estonian Embassy.  As a 
result, no one in the Estonia Government knows what Savisaar 
discusses with his Russia colleagues. 
 
7.(SBU) President Ilves' hope is that the March elections will bring 
a new government that is less corrupt and less prone to scandals. 
He was particularly critical of another current ruling coalition 
member: the People's Union.  The People's Union has been at the 
center of two recent scandals: Minister of Agriculture Ester Tuiksoo 
and the Werol rapeseed oil scandal and ex-Minister of the 
Environment Vilju Reiljan and the land board scandal which forced 
his resignation.  It was apparent that President Ilves hopes for a 
new ruling coalition that will exclude both the Center Party and the 
People's Union Party.  While Ilves is supposed to be the president 
for all Estonians, he made it clear that there are some Estonians 
with whom he would prefer to work. 
 
----------------- 
ESTONIA'S ECONOMY 
----------------- 
 
8.(U) Turning to economic issues, President Ilves acknowledged that 
Estonia's labor shortage will be a major problem.  Ilves said that 
the big issue for debate in Estonia is whether or not to import 
labor from Russia and the former Soviet Union, but added that 
discussion of this should wait until the Estonians can gauge the 
impact of Romanian and Bulgarian membership in the EU.  Ilves said 
that most of the big Western European countries have closed their 
doors to labor from Romania and Bulgaria, so there's a chance that 
some Romanians and Bulgarians will be interested in coming to work 
here in Estonia. 
 
9.(U) PM Ansip does not like the idea of welcoming new immigrants 
into Estonia's labor market.  First, he argued that Estonia is still 
trying to deal with the last wave of immigrants brought in to supply 
the Estonian labor market (i.e., the Soviet-era immigrants brought 
in from around the Soviet Union to man Estonia's factories).  PM 
Ansip stated that Estonia first needs to finish this integration 
task before embarking on any new ones.  Second, he said that there 
is still room for the Estonian economy to grow without expanding the 
labor force.  Ansip stated that Estonian productivity is still only 
half of what it is in Finland or Sweden.  In other words, Estonia's 
economy could continue to grow without adding new workers.  However, 
he did express a hope that Estonia's growth rate would cool off to 
around 8-9% in 2007 rather than continue at the 10-12% it 
experienced in 2006. 
 
GOLDSTEIN