Riigikogu votes down bill requiring taxi drivers to know Estonian
Riigkogu members on Tuesday voted down a bill that, among other things, requires taxi drivers to have sufficient knowledge of the national language.
Ammendents to the Language Act and the Public Transport Act proposed by the opposition party Isamaa were dismissed at the first reading.
Thirty-nine MPs voted to reject the bill, 15 against, and 30 were absent.
Isamaa's Tõnis Lukas, a former minister of culture, said a large number of workers have entered the labor market with no previous knowledge of Estonia and poor or non-existent language skills
He said the situation has gotten out of hand in the service industry and new regulations are needed.
Lukas also claimed that if there are no rules, the Estonian language will disappear from public use.
The government agreed it would not support the draft last month, although Minister of Education Kristina Kallas (Eesti 200) said there are plans to amend the LLanguage Act.
The Ministry of Education told ERR last week that there is no big problem with taxi drivers' language skills, and complaints are rarely received.
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Editor: Karin Koppel, Helen Wright
