The regular cabinet meeting is held Thursdays at the Stenbock House, whoever is in office, and usually followed by a press conference. While Reform and the Social Democrats (SDE) will remain in office in the new coalition likely to be announced as in place in the next few days, Isamaa will no longer be in office.

The Reform-Isamaa-SDE coalition entered office on July 18 last year, making this one of the shorter-lived administrations, a likelihood already mentioned at the time, by its participants.

It was the second to be headed up by Kaja Kallas; she had been prime minister of the Reform-Center coalition from January 2021; for several weeks starting early June last year, she oversaw a minority government consisting only of her own party.

With Reform's electoral success on March 5, and the entry into the Riigikogu of Eesti 200 for the first time, with 14 seats, the dynamics changed, and an alliance of these two parties, together with SDE, would have a 60-seat majority, at the 101-seat Riigikogu (by comparison, the outgoing coalition had 56 seats combined).

While SDE's seat tally fell, from 10 to nine, after the general election, Isamaa's fell even more – to eight, from the 12 it had in the XIV Riigikogu.

The Reform-SDE-Isamaa coalition remained in office on a rubber-stamp basis while the coalition negotiations for the next administration went on, as per standard constitutional practice.

The XV Riigikogu takes up its seats next Monday, and one of its first tasks is likely to be to vote on the new coalition – which also must pass through some ceremonial waystages. In any case the proposed coalition, including its distribution of ministers, will need to be announced first – as noted, this is expected to take place over the weekend, even as it is the Easter break.

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