Estonia listened to the international community while rebuilding after the end of the Soviet Union, and maybe the time has now come to listen to those bordering Russia, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said on Sunday, 4 September, after being awarded the Hayek Prize alongside Baltic leaders, as informed by Estonian broadcaster ERR.
«On behalf of Estonia, I am honoured to receive this award, together with Latvian and Lithuanian colleagues, for defending European democratic values», said Prime Minister.
«Honestly, I think that this award should be given to my father and his contemporaries as they made the important decisions to build up Estonia as we know it today.»
Prime Minster recalled times when Estonia emerged from the totalitarian prison 31 years ago, Estonia had to build a free and open society, from scratch. Re–establishing a democratic relationship between the citizen and the state is not something to be done overnight and it is not something that can be simply learned from books.
«Life under Soviet occupation shaped the mindset and attitude of our people back then – the state was not ours but theirs – the occupiers’, so it was fine to steal from the state,» she continued.
According to her, Estonia understood from the beginning that the rule of law is the foundation of prosperity – if the investors trust your legal system, they are not afraid to invest in your economy.
Estonia is proud of all they have achieved over the past three decades.
Since the early 1990s, the average salary in Estonia has increased 45 times, and the average pension 60 times. Even adjusted for inflation, our real GDP has increased by around 3.5 times, far faster than in Europe as a whole. As a result, our living standards have rapidly converged towards EU average levels. In the process, we have surpassed several countries of so–called Old Europe, most recently Spain.
Despite various domestic and external pressures to change, we have remained largely true to these principles, which also became a foundation for our success to date.
Prime Minister indicated in her speech that defending European democratic values is as topical as back then – today we defend these values in Ukraine.
While being members of the EU and NATO, Estonia is well positioned to show leadership and take responsibility in defending these principles.
«You do not need to look hard for parallels with our state building and the importance of giving support to Ukraine now. Ukraine is under attack because it is a democracy, because it built an open market economy and because it wanted to become part of the rule of law family of the EU,» said the Prime Minister
She mentioned that history gave the states that regained or gained their independence at the end of the Cold War a short window of opportunity. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were able to take advantage of it.
It is unimaginable what the situation would be now, had Baltic States not become members of NATO and the EU in 2004.
In her speech, Kallas cautiously mentioned Dmitri Medvedev – the top propagandist of the Kremlin regime – quote: «The fact that you are free is not your achievement, but rather a failure on our side».
According to Kallas, such expressions show that while the Soviet Union collapsed, its expansionist colonialist ideology never did. Neither of Russia’s leaders have given up their goal of conquering new territories. Ukraine is not the victim of a one–time miscalculation by a madman.
«We are witnessing a long–planned campaign by the Kremlin to exert control over neighbouring countries by brute force, no matter the human cost, » said the Prime Minister.
She indicated that the EU and NATO have a window of opportunity to stop Russian aggression now. One example is the decision at the NATO Bucharest Summit in 2008 not to grant Ukraine and Georgia a Membership Action Plan– by now it is clear that this was interpreted by Russia as weakness and a clear invitation to establish itself militarily in Europe.
«Now it is our responsibility to learn the lessons from our past decisions. We cannot repeat the mistakes we did with our response to aggression in Georgia, Crimea, and Donbas where Russia gained territories and was not punished for it. No legal consequences followed,» says Kallas.
She thinks EU and NATO fail to stay strong and push back the aggressor to its territories and prosecute war crimes and crimes of aggression the whole international rules–based order is in danger.
«Those sharing the border with the aggressor have a different experience and perspective from those with much better neighbours. While building up the democracy, along the lines of Friedrich August von Hayek´s principles, we were listening to our international friends and advisers. And maybe now is the time to listen to us,» she concluded.
The Hayek Foundation’s international prize is awarded every two years to persons whose activities have been outstanding in creating, strengthening, or fostering a liberal economic, and social order in Germany, Europe, or elsewhere in the world.