Estonian-Russian border treaty to be signed, in Moscow

Photo: EPA / Scanpix

Pursuant to the treaty, Estonia and Russia would exchange, on equal basis, 128.6 hectares of land and 11.4 square kilometres of Lake Peipsi surface.

Should Estonia’s foreign minister Urmas Paet and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov sign the Estonian-Russian border treaty tomorrow, a lengthy process would come to its end. Or, to be more precise, the process would come to the beginning of its end. After signatures, the treaty needs to be ratified in parliaments of both countries. Then, the ratification signatures will be exchanged, and a transnational committee formed to manage the marking of the border in real nature.

How long exactly all of that may take, nobody knows. The foreign ministry, however, says the process may take years.

Over the past year, several times speculations have surfaced regarding where the signing of the treaty might take place. In Estonian media, the talk has mostly been about Tallinn.

The foreign ministry has offered to the Russians that, in order to speed up the process, the treaty might be signed at some international event, where Mr Paet and Mr Lavrov happen to meet. To that, the Russians have replied that a border treaty is a matter so important that this could never be done in a third country, Tallinn or Moscow being the only options.

In the end, Moscow was selected, as Mr Lavrov would just not find time and otherwise the issue would again drag on into the distant future. As a return favour, in a way, Mr Lavrov in his turn promised to officially visit Estonian in the second half of the year.

After Estonia’s regained independence, this is actually the third attempt at getting the border treaty signed.

The initial attempt came in the mid-1990ies – in principle, the borderline was managed to agree, as authorised by the Estonian government, then foreign minister Riivo Sinijärv had power to sign. It didn’t happen.

At second attempt, things went further and, in 2005, foreign ministers signed the treaty. While ratifying the treaty, however, Riigikogu added a couple of sentences. Not accepting these, Russia backed away from the treaty.

So it’s the third try now. As compared to the last 2005 treaty, the text now features two small specifications. Into the preamble, the following has been added to a sentence: «... developing legal basis for solving issues related to Estonian-Russian border treaty and affirming, mutually, the lack of territorial claims». Into Article 9 of the treaty, however, the following section has been added: «By this treaty, without any exceptions, only issues related to state border line are being regulated.» These are supposed to be compromises, easing political tensions at both sides.  

In practical life, the signing of the treaty will not alter much. Broadly, the state border between Estonia and Russia will go along the current check line. At places, minor exchanges are indeed happening; even so, the principle of parity is being adhered to: the plots change hands on equal basis.

All in all, 128.6 hectares of land will be exchanged – for comparison’s sake, this is a bit more that the Tallinn Old Town – and 11.4 square kilometres of lake area. This is all technical by nature.

The best known of these is the so-called Saatse Boot, legally a part of Russia, yet surrounded by Estonian territory – with locals and tourists using the motorway passing through the «boot» to get to Värska. The rule is: you may drive, but while driving through territory of Russia, leave not the car. According to the treaty, Estonia gets the «boot».

The Russian side gets an equal area, in return – a larger plot, under forests, from Meremäe Commune, and a smaller slice of Värska Commune, in Suursoo area. Parts of the area changing hands are in private ownership. How about those and issues of compensation – this is not settled, in details. Foreign ministry says an action plan needs to be compiled in cooperation of several agencies and the ministry.

To ease the border life, some lake surface is changing hands on Peipsi. For example, it is currently impossible to travel the Russian side of Lake Peipsi to the Narva River; on the river itself, the border goes down the middle. Also, in places the border will be adjusted some so that fishermen would not easily stumble over it – currently, this is often the case as the border runs illogically.

There is no big political opposition to Estonian-Russian border treaty being signed. As referred above, Estonia has earlier, at several occasions, stood ready to enter the border treaty, as supported by very various coalitions, parties and minsters. Even today, both coalition parties support the signing of the treaty; no opposing feelings have been expressed by opposition forces in Riigikogu.

Of government ministers, only one has stood against – the minister of agriculture Helir-Valdor Seeder. Again, Mr Seeder assures Postimees that he is against the treaty being entered, alleging it is damaging to Estonian national interests.

Even so, these are mere marginalia; at the moment, at least, a political consensus seems to prevail regarding the treaty. True, at the Estonian political periphery, there have naturally been angry protests against the treaty; including other titles, Urmas Paet has been labelled state traitor.

In everyday life, the signatures to the treaty will hardly make a change. Sometimes, the treaty has been linked to Russia’s desire to acquire visa freedom with the European Union. Estonian foreign ministry totally denies such a link. Probably, they’re right.

From time to time, there has indeed been the visa-freedom talk; actually, however, there are no visa-freedom-talks happening between EU and Russia. For such talks to ever start, several basic conflicts ought to be overcome; and, anyway, the experience so far shows EU takes years to process such visa freedoms. Simply put, this is a very indefinite and long-term perspective, so it’s not right to link it to the border treaty.

Sometimes, various Russian officials have said the border treaty would create a new atmosphere, cooperation in various areas would get a boost. For instance, is has been hinted that, then, the Duma might ratify a treaty of doing away with double taxation.

The talk of the border treaty perhaps leading to some simplified visa regime is part of the same old song. Would that really happen, no one can predict.

Probably, there will be no damage out of the treaty being signed. Even so, to assume there will now be a surge of cross-border cooperation with all kinds of international treaties «untangled» – that would also be naive. That’s, at least, what the Estonian foreign ministry seems to think.

Attempt No 3, at treaty

1994–1999

• At the end of 1994, then Prime Minister Andres Tarand came out with a declaration, wherein he expressed readiness regarding compromise with the borderline course.

• On January 9^th, 1996by order of the government, a delegation was formed to negotiate order treaty between Estonia and Russia.

• In October 1996, the delegations agreed regarding the main text of the treaty, the text confirmed on October 25^th 1996 by delegations’ deputy heads Kalev Stoicescu and Sergei Lazarev.

• In November 1996, Estonian foreign Minister  Siim Kallas and Russian foreign minister Jevgeni Primakov met, agreeing the border treaty.

• On November 28^th 1996, the government of Estonia approved border treaty bill, authorising foreign minister Riivo Sinijärv to sign on behalf of Estonia. Even so, the parties never came to sign the treaty.

1999–2005

• On March 5^th 1999, delegations’ heads Raul Mälk and Ludvig Tšižov paraphrased the bills, technically polished, with all the additional materials. After that, various Estonian governments have continually confirmed readiness to sign the bill.

• Negotiations over signing the treaty continued till 2005, when agreement was reached by the parties and foreign ministers Urmas Paet and Sergei Lavrov signed the treaty on May 18^th, 2005, in Moscow.

2005–2014

• The treaties signed in 2005 have not entered into force, internationally, as Russia never ratified the treaties, announcing it would not act as party to these. 

• The borderline issue again arose in 2012. By foreign affairs committee of the Riigikogu, the government was proposed to initiate consultations regarding a mutually satisfying border treaty.

• On May 23^rd 2013, the government of Estonia approved border treaty bills and signature thereof by foreign minister.  

• In October, President of Russia Vladimir Putin issued orders to foreign ministry to sign border treaty with Estonia.

• On January 16^th 2014, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov let Urmas Paet know that Russia has completed domestic procedures regarding border treaty with Estonia.

• As agreed, the treaties will be signed in Moscow, on February 18^th.