The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is meeting on January 25th in Strasbourg to discuss the report on Estonia, which highlights the country’s achievements in e-governance and cyber defense, and recommends reducing the number of stateless residents.
The head of the Estonian delegation and the vice president of the PACE Marianne Mikko said that the report on Estonia concluded that the democratic institutions in Estonia respect the rules of the Council of Europe, and that Estonia is honoring its obligations as a member state. “I am very happy to see that Estonia’s achievements in e-governance and cyber defence have been noted and highlighted in the report,” Mikko said.
The report also discusses relations between Estonia and Russia, the situation of the Russian-speaking minority, and issues of citizenship. “Estonia is encouraged to work on reducing the unemployment and social marginalization of ethnic minorities, as well as on reducing the number of stateless persons, including by simplifying the naturalization process for long-term residents,” Mikko said.
The report calls on Estonia to join the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Member of the delegation Raivo Aeg said that Estonia has not done this because Russian is not a minority language or an endangered language in Estonia. “The Estonian legislation ensures broader opportunities to use the Russian language than the charter,” Aeg said. He added that, instead of this, Estonia needs to solve the issue of getting a larger part of the Russian-speaking community to learn the national language and to get better integrated into the Estonian society.
Other topics at the PACE sub-meeting this week include protection of minority languages, basic citizen’s income, humanitarian consequences of war in Ukraine, Turkish military intervention in Syria, and the role of the Council of Europe in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Formed in 1949, the Council of Europe is an organization with the aim of promoting democracy and protecting human rights and the principle of the state based on the rule of law. The Council of Europe currently has 47 members, the only European country that is not a member is Belarus. PACE is Europe’s oldest international parliamentary assembly, the first sitting of which took place on Aug. 10, 1949.
