Center Party Resurrects Easter Monday Holiday Bill
The Center Party has said it will breathe new life into a draft law to make Easter Monday a public holiday.
“A joint commission consisting of representatives from the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church and Lääne County a few days ago said they will petition the government to make Easter Monday a public holiday. As a similar bill has been in front of Parliament for two years, we will ask the Chairman of the Constitutional Committee and the board of the Parliament to move forward with the bill [...]” Priit Toobal, the party's secretary general, said in a press release on Sunday.
Currently Malta, Portugal and Estonia are the only EU members in which Easter Monday is not a public holiday, Toobal said, adding that banks and EU institutions are also shut on that day.
He noted that Finance Ministry experts have recently said that the Estonian labor market is flexible enough that lost production on public holidays can be compensated before or after the day, decreasing any negative effect on annual production numbers.
The bill was initiated by the party in September 2011, but the government rejected the proposal, saying that Estonian society is not religious enough to justify an extended Easter holiday.