Monday morning began with the launch of the programme ‘10 Minutes with Jana Toom’ on Radio Maximum (in Russian). The topic of the first episode was electricity prices.
This programme will be broadcast every week on Mondays at 9:30 a.m., with repeats on Mondays at 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays at 10:00 a.m. and it will also be available on my website – the first episode is already available here
On Estonian Independence Day, I attended the presidential reception. Since I was in Estonia, and an important meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) was taking place in Brussels, I asked a colleague to read out a statement I had prepared on my behalf. It was about the European Business Wallets initiative – the creation of a single European digital commercial register.
On the one hand, I am the shadow rapporteur for the opinion on this directive in the JURI committee. On the other hand, there has been news that Estonia, represented by Minister of Justice and Digital Development Liisa-Li Pakosta, is opposed to the creation of such a register. The arguments are that we already are a developed digital state and that participation in the project would cost €150 million.
At the same time, the European Commission says that the European digital wallet will save EU businesses at least €150 billion a year. I don't yet understand how these arguments correlate with each other. It is clear that any innovation costs money, but perhaps our businesses will ultimately save even more? Is it worth the effort or not?
On Wednesday, I gave two interviews, both on webcasts: in Estonian on ‘Keskhommik’ and in Russian on the Rus.ERR programme ‘Live from the News House’.
On Thursday, I was already in Brussels, where a meeting of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) took place. We adopted several reports, including a report on women's entrepreneurship and a report on articles related to our topic in the European budget.
On the same day, there was a meeting of shadow rapporteurs on the report on the coordination of social security systems. I have already spoken about the situation with this report, which is very important for Estonia – it will soon be 10 years old and is stuck at the EU Council approval stage. The other rapporteurs and I decided that a trialogue – a joint meeting of representatives of the EU Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament – would take place at the end of April to finalise everything. This means that, barring any extraordinary circumstances, we are only three months away from the report being adopted.
There was also a meeting of the Intergroup on mental health (I am its co-chair). In the second quarter of 2026, Roxana Mînzatu, Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness, will present the Quality Jobs Roadmap – a series of legal acts dedicated to the labour market. These will include a directive on a just transition and a directive on the right to disconnect, i.e. the right not to answer work calls and messages outside working hours. I worked on this file at the beginning of the last term as a shadow rapporteur, and the main rapporteur on it was Roberta Metsola, now President of the European Parliament.
The European Commission proposed a corresponding directive, which was negotiated by employers and trade unions, but the negotiations reached an impasse, so the European Commission stalled the directive. Now it has decided to reinstate the right to disconnect. Since the right to disconnect is directly related to mental health (the availability of employees 24/7 leads to burnout and breakdown) our group will monitor the process and propose amendments. For example, an important point for us is the prohibition of discrimination. Availability outside working hours can be paid by agreement, but an employer cannot have the right to say to an employee who refuses such availability (they have small children, for example): I need an available employee, so I will hire someone else instead of you.
Finally, on Thursday, I recorded ’Brussels Diary with Yana Toom’, which you can read in English here (TBA).