Interior minister says shun provocations

Photo: Toomas Tatar

Minister of internal affairs Hanno Pevkur (37) has, over these past three years, managed to govern both social and justice ministries. In the new post, he likes immediate contact with people.

How can it be that one moment one is social minister, then overnight one is justice minister, and then up and interior minister/regional minister in one person?

Kind of remarkable, isn’t it. I do not know if this is the world record, but: during one parliament it makes for four different portfolios and three different ministries. That’s a first, in Estonia. This is part of a politician’s life and legal education allows for flexibility in the state apparatus. In that sense I’m a happy politician that I have been able to work in the areas I have been touching earlier.

When it comes to legislation, justice minister is like university rector, but interior minister like a vocational school director.

I’d rather compare interior ministry and social ministry, which are very close to people: helping and creating the feeling of security. In the interior ministry domain there’s about 10,000 people, over half of these policemen, who daily help people and stand for security. Add the rescuers and border guards. Yes, justice ministry has a great responsibility for legislation, to stand for its quality; interior and social ministries carry and even greater responsibility, a direct responsibility before people. Internal security, continuance of the state, national defence is large domain with great responsibility.   

In his interview to Postimees, justice minister Andres Anvelt said he was happy he got that portfolio and not the justice minister’s, as in interior ministry there are many problems but one can’t solve these in a year. What will you focus at?

In the current situation, it is of topmost priority to instil in Estonians the feeling of security, every one of us needs to feel protected. External security is one thing, and the work done by defence ministry; but, looking at the events in Ukraine, we need to realise a very important aspect: with sabotage from inside, it is not defence forces that comes to the street to deal with these, but rather the police. The first line suppressing domestic unrest is police, border guards, and rescuers. In the current security situation, it is my primary task that border guards, policemen, and rescuers would be convinced, and be motivated, that the Estonian state appreciates them and needs every one of them.

You are entering the job in a difficult time. These past years, the first weeks of May haven’t been a picture of peace, in Estonia. Have you gotten the danger assessments yet?

Sure. Lots of papers with a red seal, ones I can’t discuss publicly. 

Worried?

I can assure you that the agencies responsible for domestic security, firstly Internal Security Service (Kapo) and Police Board, have done all in their power to guarantee security. I am able to confirm that the preliminary activities expected from these agencies have been concluded. Should the need arise to react, the capability is there. I so hope it will not be needed. I hope no event in days and months to come will escalate to where force needs to be applied.

The former minister Ken-Marti Vaher, in his overview of his work, left the notice that «the organisation of psychological defence of population needs to be enhanced». That’s a red seal topic as well, but people might still know something about it?

This covers all kinds of activities. We might pay attention to having our media space as objective as possible. We know that the media space of our Eastern neighbour’s is not so. We know how greatly media impacts human behaviour. I hope all media outlets in Estonia will do their best to cover international and Estonian events objectively. I heartily hope that the people of Estonia trust their [governmental] agencies. This is very important. The first priority of state authorities and journalism is that we do not call for thoughtless activities, for provocations. That would be the worst, as it doesn’t take much to conjure up undesirable consequences. Psychological war, cyber war – compared to 10–15 years ago, these have strongly changed the understanding of security, the understanding of how a state needs to be protected.

The state should perhaps pay more attention to Ida-Viru County, show that it cares?

It is important that the presence of the Estonian state be visible in Ida-Viru County. Therefore, prison service was transferred to Jõhvi. My first county visit will be to Ida-Viru County. The state must pay attention to all regions, but we all must pay a little more attention to Ida-Viru County. To create a feeling of unity, the people there must sense that Estonia isn’t only Tallinn.

Police must be motivated; currently, Tax and Customs Board, which is under finance ministry, is buying up investigators from police. Recently, there’s been quite a lot of that.

Police and Border Guard Board director general Elmar Vaher is an excellent leader. For a long time, he has worked as a rank and file policeman. His plans are directed towards rising the policemen’s salaries; and I support him a hundred percent. He has started from the right end i.e. salaries must rise for the patrolling policemen first, who are closest to people. Their salary must be such that young people want to apply. Mr Vaher has said it should at least be Estonian average. By the current changes, Police and Border Guard Board will be able to lift minimum wage to €900 a month.

With Tallinn, it probably means €1,000?

Yes, we have regional differences here, indeed. In Tallinn and in Ida-Viru County, regional payment of €150 is additionally paid to policemen. But no-one should earn under €900, which would mean a remarkable over €100 leap. That means rearrangement of internal resources ...

... and lay-offs?

May-be there is a need for lay-offs, but as far as I understand, major lay-offs is not the first order of the day. Tomorrow (today) we will have a meeting with Police and Border Guard Board, and then I will have some more clarity. My expectation is that there the numbers of policemen on the streets would not decrease. The police must be visible. Then, public order is guaranteed much better.

Do we currently have a situation where more people are leaving the police than Police College is able to train?

I would not dare claim that. True, there is a turnover of people in police; even so, considering the movements in agencies within interior ministry domain, it is not the strongest in police. Still, last year’s turnover was about 500 people.

In the interior ministry, staff turnover has been very strong; I’m definitely not satisfied with that.  I hope it will change and we will be able to guarantee stability and a good atmosphere at the ministry. These past three years, staff turnover here has been 23 percent; figuratively speaking, in every four years the entire staff is replaced. At the alarm centre, the turnover was 19 percent; in police 8.6 percent, of whom 6.4 percent left out of free will. From Rescue Board, 3.9 left citing own initiative. The highest percentage in at the interior ministry, with the alarm centre.

People’s fears are perhaps illustrated by the rumours spreading in South-Estonia that there has already been a provocation at the border.

I understand the fears and therefore, with psychological defence, it is of utmost importance what the media does and in which media space people live. In the TV channels of our Eastern neighbour – RT, PBK, ORT – it is hard to find objective news.

To turn these channels off the air, here, would probably not be wise?

Not wise indeed. Rather, we must set an objective picture next to these. Most importantly, we must maintain normal behaviour, in Estonia.

As minister of justice, you stood for leaving crooks without criminal income. Last year, criminal income was arrested for the worth of €3.2m, but it’s not such a successful measure really. For instance, a criminal had six pairs of shoes taken from him...

Confiscating criminal income has become much more effective. Talking about economic crime and drug-related crimes, the message is very simple – a crime will not pay off.

If a person knows that the state will take away the gains from him, and also from third persons – the crook’s mother and father – the motivation to become a criminal will disappear. The capabilities to persecute and confiscate criminal income keeps increasing. Even hiding assets in Spain or Germany won’t help, as cross-border cooperation is ever more effective.

The previous minister laid a great emphasis on voluntary rescuers and Mr Vaher reported how, as compared to 2012, ranks of volunteers grew 334 percent in 2013. A remarkable percentage, but we cannot put our trust on that, can we?

The percentage increased, but the same timeframe included rescue teams reform. Talking about community rescue activities, voluntary rescue and rescue at sea...

... the recent tragic accident in Orissaare where a small boy drowned should perhaps draw special attention to rescue at sea?

That was extremely tragic and I’m heartily sorry, my sincere condolences to the family. That was a vital lesson. Today (yesterday), I had a meeting with leaders of both Police and Rescue Boards. Based on their suggestions, I decided that the ministry shall grant one-off financial support to increase sea rescue capacity in Saaremaa (more specifically, of Orissaare) to purchase an extra boat; also, police will be seeking ways to equip Muhu volunteers with a lifeboat. I also talked with Pöide commune mayor and assured them of state support whenever they desire to create a voluntary rescue team.

I hope there will be more people deciding to join the ranks of volunteers. Not long ago, Kaido Höövelson [aka Baruto, the former sumo wrestler – edit] was recently elected a patron of rescuers, I hope this will be a boost. We need to realise that our health is up to us, our assets and wellbeing is up to us, most of all. I call upon all local governments to think about how they could support voluntary rescue teams. The teams currently number 105, but the local governments are over 200. The goal could be having a voluntary rescue team, in addition to professional help, in every local government.

During the next five years, we will be replacing close to half of rescue trucks used by professional teams. Some need to be scrapped, with some we can help equip volunteers. That’s a good example of professional-volunteer cooperation, where we stand as one for a common value – human life.