Ministers open budget talks cards.
Postimees Digest, Thursday, August 29
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The paper offers an overview of what ministers will try and achieve during upcoming budget negotiations that will follow the by now familiar motto of "not enough money to make everyone happy". Minister of Internal Affairs Ken-Marti Vaher said that he will stick to his guns in terms of a 13 percent salary advance for police officers and that wages should go up first and foremost for people who are out there risking their lives for the nation's safety every day. Vaher said that officers dealing with severe organized crime and those currently paid the least should also see a rise. Minister of Justice Hanno Pevkur is looking for additional financing to continue the court legists program that has yielded good results in Harju County where the project of introducing additional court advocates has lightened the workload of judges and resulted in a considerable boost in speed of proceedings. Minister of Social Affairs Taavi Rõivas said that he would like to refrain from drafting the budget via the media. Nevertheless, it is speculated the government will raise the subsistence level to 90 euros. "Let us first wait for the finance ministry's economic forecast. It is clear that the social ministry is interested in supporting the most vulnerable among us. I have fields in which I want to make truly long strides," Rõivas said. Environment minister Keit Pentus-Rosimannus said her agency will invest in ecological reserves and national parks and that the ministry is looking at 100 million euros of environmental subsidies from Europe this period, making for the greatest financial freedom the ministry has ever seen. The minister also said she will concentrate on Estonian forests and invest up to 5 million euros towards cleaning the waterfront of Tallinn's city center borough and the Merivälja region. Minister of Defense Urmas Reinsalu has sent a letter to the finance ministry to ask for additional means to renovate the historical Patarei prison complex. Reinsalu writes that the condition of the monument has deteriorated quickly over recent years and that first and foremost the grand building needs a new roof.
Statistics refutes talk of overregulation.
Minister of Internal Affairs Ken-Marti Vaher says in an interview that contrary to complaints of police overregulation and excessive issue of fines, the number of registered traffic misdemeanors has fallen from 160,000 in the first seven months of 2008 to 65,000 in 2013 and that the police concentrates more on specific areas and risk analysis and less on blanket punishments. The minister adds that this focus has already paid off as the relative importance of drunk drivers on Estonian roads has fallen from 1.74 percent to 1.3 percent over the past year. In addition, Vaher counters criticism of speed limit puritanism and says that Estonia's general speed limit of 90 km/h on undivided highways is the European standard and that sworn lawyer Leon Glikman's claim, according to which no one bothers to fine you for going 15 km/h above the speed limit elsewhere in Europe, is purely emotional.