The tax, whose associated bill was finalized Wednesday, will accompany a hike in the misdemeanor fines tariff and also in state fees for activities such as buying property.

However, while the new tax and the increased fines and fees will bring more revenue into state coffers, this will not happen to a sufficient extent to affect significantly the state budgetary situation, Lauri Läänemets, SDE chair, said.

The most reasonable solution here would be a broad-based national defense tax, which Läänemets said his party has already proposed.

Conversely, the sugary drinks tax proposal was not, Läänemets went on, an SDE-only affair.

"Let us not pretend that these are only our initiatives; they are initiatives from the coalition," Läänemets told ETV news show "Aktuaalne kaamera" (AK) Wednesday evening.

"I know that yesterday, [finance minister] Mart Võrklaev tried to say that SDE are trying to do everything here, to raise taxes. That is not so. We will do what we have really agreed on with the coalition, from the point of public health, from the point of state fees."

"However, I would say that if we wish to improve the state budget in order to put things right so that in the future we can pay [higher] wages to police officer and teachers, well this is not enough. We need to do significantly more things," Läänemets, who is also interior minister, went on.

The rationale of the tax on sweetened beverages is primarily to improve public health, particularly with regard to younger people, in inducing them to drink fewer soft drinks which contain sugar in order, among other things, to avoid tooth decay.

The experience of other countries shows that a blanket tax on all products containing added sugar is not viable, Läänemets said, but the most effective target is sugary drinks in any case.

Minister Võrklaev had told AK Tuesday that the sugary drinks tax and the fine rates rise were both requests from Läänemets, and from SDE's health minister, Riina Sikkut.

SDE had made as a quid pro quo support for boosting fine rates and introducing a sugary drinks tax, in return for support from the rest of the coalition on its "Robin Hood" proposals to redistribute wealth from richer municipalities to less welathy ones. This was even as the sugary drinks tax was an SDE supported measure, regardless of the position of the Reform Party and of Eesti 200.

Läänemets said Wednesday that the municipalities wealth redistribution issue is already enshrined in the coalition agreement signed last April, while the ultimatum from SDE and Läänemets was to get this squared away this week.

"Of course, we can move forward when all aspects and agreements are in place, and I have no doubt that these agreements will be forthcoming," Läänemets said Wednesday, adding that the details still needed to be hashed out.

As for the misdemeanor fines tariff, for instance with regard to traffic offences, these have not been updated for 22 years, the SDE leader said, while since then wages and standards of living have been rising. This means the fines are relatively toothless in deterring offenders, he said.

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