Annual Integration Plan in Numbers
The annual integration plan approved by the Cabinet Thursday for making Estonia's multiethnic society more cohesive has a budget of 7.04 million euros, down from 7.75 million euros in 2012.
State financing dropped by nearly 1 million euros, from 5.17 to 4.15 million euros. Foreign aid and matching funds increased slightly from 2.58 to 2.89 million euros.
The government deemed its 2012 plan satisfactory, yielding a monitoring survey, a long-term plan for 2020, conferences on language immersion and cultural integration, and a new website - integratsioon.ee - available in Estonian, Russian and English.
The 2013 plan cuts the funding pie more or less equally between four areas: educational and cultural projects, social and economic projects, legal and political projects and administration.
Social and economic projects are receiving more support than last year, mainly through the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
It was reported Wednesday that the unemployment rate gap between ethnic Estonians and non-Estonians widened last year, to 8.8 and 14.9 percent respectively.
A Ministry of Culture report concluded that the state is not likely to achieve its goal of shrinking the gap from 59 to 30 percent next year. The annual income per household member was 7,566 euros among ethnic Estonians in 2011, compared with 6,083 euros among non-ethnic Estonians