This week was a ‘committee week’. In other words, it was filled with meetings and discussions that pave the way for the improvement of European legislation.
There was also a session of the European Parliament, but it was short and non-working: on Tuesday, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Tatiana Bucci, who survived a Nazi concentration camp, spoke to MEPs in Brussels.
1
On Monday, we had a meeting with the Minister of Justice and Digital Development Liisa-Ly Pakosta. We discussed the European Business Wallets initiative, which is, in short, a single European digital commercial register with additional features such as a unique digital identity for businesses and an internal communication channel with other companies and government agencies (more details). We have a common market, but no single commercial register, and this sometimes significantly slows down the economy.
2
On Tuesday, I met with Estonian bloggers to discuss a possible ban on social media for children under 15. I am convinced that such bans are pointless; children of the digital age will easily circumvent them. Moreover, it is not only children who believe all sorts of nonsense on the internet, but adults too. I hope it won't come to a direct ban at EU level, and if it does, I will vote against it.
At the meeting of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM), we discussed the upcoming 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. The session will take place in March in New York, and I am going to attend it. I expressed scepticism about whether the EU can teach anyone anything there, given that a number of European countries, including Estonia, have not properly implemented the Istanbul Convention and do not recognise rape as a criminal offence if the victim was unable to resist due to fear.
Then there was a meeting with officials from Tallinn City Hall – they came to Brussels with issues concerning the seven-year EU budget proposal. The EU intends to allocate funds to countries that are not tied to specific projects, but there will be no funding for cities. In other words, cities will depend on the will of the central government, which may or may not give them money.
Another problem is that the EU budget provides funds for civil defence, but, again, not for cities, rather for rescue workers and firefighters. At the same time, it is clear that it is the city, not the fire brigade, that should build bomb shelters or provide emergency services. We have agreed to lobby for both points: the targeted allocation of funds for cities and access for local authorities to crisis funds. I think many MEPs will support us. This is a problem for all countries without exception. In Estonia, by the way, there are five ‘cities’ in the sense in which the word is used in the European budget: Tartu, Pärnu, Tallinn, Narva and, all together, other cities in the north-east.
Tuesday ended with a meeting of the Committee on the Housing Crisis (HOUS). At the next plenary session, a report on overcoming the housing crisis will be adopted, and we have been fine-tuning it.
3
On Wednesday, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) adopted a report on the gender pay and pension gap. Now the ball is in the court of the Commission.
I also took part in a meeting of the Friends of Rail Baltic group. The railway is needed, but, as we know, Latvia is significantly slowing down its construction. There are currently only seven major infrastructure projects connecting different EU countries, and all of them are progressing slowly, so this is a common problem.
On the same day, I took part in a meeting of the Tallinn City Council's Urban Property Committee via the internet.
There was also a meeting of the coordinators of the European Parliament's Social Affairs Committee. This semester, the president of the EU Council is Cyprus, so the Cypriots were interested in our priorities.
My priority is the directive on the coordination of social security systems in the EU. This is a file with a difficult history, once it was removed from the agenda due to the domestic political situation in Poland. The point is that if a person from Estonia works in Finland, they should be entitled to Finnish unemployment benefits and so on. As I understand it, the Cypriots are keen to bring this file back, which pleases me as shadow rapporteur.
4
Thursday began with a meeting of the Committee on Petitions (PETI), where a petition related to Hungary and Poland was discussed. Viktor Orbán granted political asylum to two Polish politicians who were wanted for trial in their home country for corruption. There was a terrible fight over this situation, and in the end, it was decided to leave the petition pending.
Then there was a meeting of the coordinators of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL), where we discussed work plans for 2026. In the second quarter, the European Commission will propose the Quality Jobs Roadmap initiative, which is a series of legal acts, so we agreed among ourselves who would take on which topics. There were also two very interesting reports on how socio-economic inequality undermines competitiveness and economic growth.
Then I took part in a briefing by the Bank of Estonia, where its head presented the digital euro initiative. The European Central Bank wants to issue part of the euro in digital format in the future, which can be downloaded to a virtual wallet on a smartphone and used to make anonymous payments. This is necessary to reduce Europe's dependence on American payment systems. Thirteen EU countries are completely dependent on the US in this regard. Some have their own developments, but there is no unified system linked to the euro as a common currency yet. I hope it will appear soon.
Before my flight to Tallinn, I managed to give an interview to the International Centre for Defence Studies. This interview is not for publication – the centre is conducting research on how politicians relate to various topics. In particular, they asked about EU enlargement. I said that enlargement is a good thing, but it is absolutely impossible at the moment. We should first put the EU in order as it is now, and then think about enlargement.
5
On Friday, I gave an hour-long interview on Kuku Radio's „Kahe vahel“ programme, and then I went to Valga, where I held a constituency surgery. The surgeries vary, but the one in Valga was particularly pleasant – there weren't many people, but they asked very good questions and were very interested. Thank you to everyone who decided to spend their Friday evening with us!