Taro, who is committee chair, says he was following established procedures, and could not make an exceptions for a party colleague.

The environment committee on Tuesday held the open doors meeting in order to discuss a draft decision on supporting the adoption of nuclear energy in Estonia.

The relevant stakeholders took part in the meeting, which was also live-linked as a webcast, including on ERR's Estonian-language page.

The public meeting was also webcast and could be viewed on platforms such as the ERR portal.

Izmailova said that: "For reasons well-known, she is not yet a member of the environment committee, but since the meeting was declared open, she decided to take advantage of this chance to take part in the discussion," speaking in the third person.

Izmailova said her party-mate and committee chair Igor Taro opted to exercise his right to bar her from asking questions to the presenters, and from participating in the discussion.

She said: "This was the first time in my year's experience at the Riigikogu that a committee chair restricted an interested MP from engaging in a discussion on such a manner."

"With the rural affairs committee, of which I am a member, non-committee MPs have taken part and have been granted speaking rights, on several occasions. Other committee chairs have stated that this is completely standard practice. The point is to take the time to thoroughly discuss matters at the committee," Izmailova went on.

Switching back to the third person, Izmailova added that: "We are starting to see a pattern whereby whenever she approaches the environment committee, certain individuals start to perspire and to panic."

According to Izmailova, the situation was made all the more embarrassing given no substantive discussion took place during the meeting.

Most of the time allocated for discussion was taken up by Kalev Kallemets, chairman of the board at nuclear energy firm Fermi Energia.

"Why am I writing about this, when there is nothing surprising about it? This is to confirm that everything remains the same with the environment committee, and there is no sign of the new standard in Estonian politics which Eesti 200 promised at the Riigikogu elections," Izmailova continued.

Igor Taro responded to Izmailova, stating that all MPs are welcome to attend committee meetings, but only committee members and invited guests have the right to speak.

"Rules of those kind apply on other committees as well. I have for instance attended the economic affairs committee led by Priit Lomp (SDE) in the same capacity, and people have attended our committee meetings before you did. No one has had any issues with the regulations," Taro said.

However, Priit Lomp in turn responded to Taro, and said that the committee he chairs doesn't quite work like that, and if any guest members wished to ask a question or speak, he had not had cause to deny them.

"This is particularly the case with a sensitive issue like the one you had on the table today. The most recent example from the economic affairs committee was the discussion on the Competition Act, where Aleksei [Jevgrafov] and Anastassia [Kovalenko-Kõlvart] from the Center Party joined us. I gave them the floor, and we discussed the matter, but since Aleksei also wanted to vote on behalf of the Center Party, he did indeed leave the meeting. It is, after all, the chair's role to organize the committee's work, and no law prohibits a member of the Riigikogu from asking questions at a committee meeting they are not officially part of," Lomp outlined.

According to Taro, Riigikogu members from outside the committee can speak if they are on a guest list, for example, as the sponsor of a bill.

Taro argued: "It is entirely proper for an MP, when coming as an observer to another committee, to accept these rules, rather than complain to all and sundry about the injustice of being treated equally to any other Riigikogu member not belonging to that committee, but who walked through the door."

"What would be the point of permanent committee membership if all 101 members of the Riigikogu could constantly participate on all committees? Democracy is always based on pre-agreed rules, not opposition to same," Taro continued.

Izmailova responded in turn, saying that Taro is trying to portray the situation as one in which he was unaware of her intention to take part.

"I don't know whether it's due to overwork or something else, but yesterday, during the Riigikogu session, I asked Igor about participating on the committee. Igor replied that I could attend, and also informed me of the meeting room location."

Taro said that Izmailova was only expected to listen, and that this was communicated to her.

Züleyxa "Zuzu" Izmailova is a former Green Party leader and entered parliament around a year ago, following the resignation of Johanna-Maria Lehtme.

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