Opinion digest: Government profited from previous cabinet's work
Samost and Rumm think that Prime Minister Jüri Ratas’ government has managed to achieve most of the goals it set for itself 100 days ago.
Editor-in-chief of ERR’s web news Anvar Samost pointed out though that not all of this success was to be attributed to the current government alone.
The government’s plan had consisted mainly of preparing analyses and reports, making proposals how to solve certain issues, and preparing bills, Samost said. Most of this had been done as announced.
“A little more than three months is a rather short period. In a last heroic all-nighter, Jüri Ratas’ government managed to tick off all the points on the list,” Samost said, referring to a government meeting last week that lasted long enough for the media to speculate that the coalition was already in trouble.
According to journalist and former director of the European Union’s representation in Estonia, Hannes Rumm, the meeting really wrapped up Ratas’ plan, and turned the government’s achievement of its 100-day plan into a public event.
“I think his voters will have received this very favorably, no matter how ironic the journalists may be about it,” Rumm said.
Samost pointed out that not all of the praise could go to the new government. Looking at those bits of the plan that were not made up of analyses and proposals, what had been connected with the 2017 state budget really had been taken care of, but this had been done in the three weeks leading up to the vote in the Riigikogu last year.
Still, there was a whole line of issues that the previous Reform Party government under Taavi Rõivas had been working on already, Samost said. These included administrative reform, state reform, work ability reform, and health care reform efforts. Yes, especially administrative reform had progressed quickly, but this could hardly be attested to Ratas’ government alone, Samost said.
In Rumm’s assessment, the government rushed to get a few changes crammed in to be able to say that something had indeed been done, and to stave off criticism. Some of this had led to painful reactions as well, as had been visible in the case of the excise hike. “Still, the government took reasonable and calculated risks here,” Rumm added.
Editor: Dario Cavegn