Laura Kalam (ERR): The Ministry of Defense's secretary Kusti Salm announced on Wednesday that he would be leaving his post. One of the main factors he highlighted was the sum of €1.6 billion, crucial for Estonia's defense expenditures, which the government seemingly has not been able to find. Do you think there is currently a shortfall of €1.6 billion, which necessary for ensuring Estonia's critical defense?

Kalev Stoicescu: I believe that Estonia's national defense must be strengthened in any case. Plu we must consider that this is collective defense; we are not defending ourselves alone, and we also have NATO's regional defense plans and much more.

How much needs to be additionally invested in defense in the near future and to what extent it is possible to do this, are things which have not yet been seriously discussed by the parties.

Why? Because we have been dealing with fire-fighting for months and months now, taking multiple steps which have proven extremely unpopular in order to bring the state's financial situation a little bit into balance and to improve Estonia's solvency.

Naturally, the government coalition and the entire Riigikogu, all the parties are very well aware of the security picture, possible risks, and also the most bleak scenarios.

Let's now talk specifically about this €1.6 billion, which the Ministry of Defense Secretary General, as well as the commander of the defense forces (Gen. Martin Herem – ed.) have presented, based apparently on some calculations and scenarios, which I have not seen yet.

I invited the secretary and the EDF commander to the Riigikogu, where we met in a secure room and, of course, I cannot say what we discussed there, as otherwise, there would have been no point to meeting in a secure room. It was precisely to discuss sensitive matters, openly.

And I can honestly state that I did not receive explanations at the level of detail and precision needed on where exactly this €1.6 billion could come from.

It is also important to clarify what amount we are even talking about. Do we mean €1.2 billion, €1.3 billion, €1.6 billion, €2 billion? I mean it is not viable to even talk about the amount based on such a level of explanation.

Kusti Salm himself conceded that he failed, and he probably did fail, because he was unable to adequately justify this need to the decision-makers. If he saw that additional explanations were needed, apparently also relating this to the defense minister, the entire government, then why didn't he do so in that case.

I do not accept this style of conduct at all, where one goes straight to the media to talk; this is a very sensitive topic actually, whether we have enough ammunition, for how many days, and so on.

Here, Russia also clearly reads from this what scenario we are betting on, what we are preparing for, and what our situation is.

Do we need to give them a head-start on this? I find a style completely unacceptable, to start discussing such sensitive national defense issues publicly via the media. This is not acceptable to me whatsoever.

What particularly amazed me is whether Kusti Salm, as the secretary general, such a high level official, does not know the legislation and the constitution well enough to understand who is who is what in this country, who is the secretary, who is the chair of the National Defense Committee, who is the prime minister, who is the defense minister, who is this or that member of the Riigikogu, and so on; how many stakeholders there actually are in this whole scenario.

Then he seems to single me out, handpicking out me alone as some kind of scapegoat to lay all his anger upon. We are not living in North Korea, and I am not some Kim Jong-un-type figure, who makes such decisions unilaterally and says, Kusti Salm, you are a nice boy, please take €1.6 billion. That is not how things work.

Second, I stress once again that he quoted my words at that meeting, at the National Defense Committee meeting in that secure room. Not only did he quote them, I can't say whether unfortunately or fortunately, but anyway incorrectly distorting them. This is particularly unacceptable.

As I said, I will not disclose what we discussed in the secure room, because that simply cannot be done. I only confirm that neither I, nor my party; actually no one is against this discussion and strengthening Estonia's national defense and directing additional funds there. But, once again: We must also know in detail what we are talking about, where this amount comes from, and what justifies it.

Can you imagine that, for example, the secretary of the Ministry of Education and Research publicly informs the government and the Riigikogu that not just two, but three billion needs to be invested in education.

Naturally, we need an educated population, and we do not only need shells, we also need an educated and healthy populace, we need to fund healthcare as well, and then he simply comes up with a general rationale that we have some plans here and that the Estonian people could be more educated - something like that, in very general terms.

Next we all nicely salute and say: Please take an extra billion. That is not how things work. It is not even €1.6 million or €16 million; it is €1.6 billion that we are talking about. It is a colossal sum.

The €1.6 billion was not sufficiently justified?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Nor that we have taken on such an obligation. I do not know who has taken on an obligation of that size and on what basis; I would also like to find that out, but that is what they are claiming. I think this needs a proper discussion and I hope that when the Ministry of Defense has a new secretary general, we can sit down calmly and discuss these things and see.

We have the right to see and also the obligation before we, as representatives of the people, as members of the Riigikogu, come to our decisions.

Yes, I am National Defense Committee chair, but the National Defense Committee had 10; now there are nine members. Each has exactly the same right to their own opinion, their position, their attitude.

Similarly, they have the right to raise queries. No one has done so, so things have not been very convincing so far. Thanks to that, unfortunately, Kusti Salm failed and, to be frank, I am very sorry about that.

I have been involved in the foreign, defense, and security policy of Estonia for 33 years and with all my heart, to build up and protect Estonia, so a "blue-sky "personal attack from the Ministry of Defense's secretary general directly against me is extremely disheartening, not to mention surprising.

Since defense expenditures need to be hiked, be it €1.6 billion, more or less, the money has to come from somewhere in any case. So where will this money be found?

Well, the fact of the matter is, we barely found €175 million from the [supplementary budget] cuts, or in fact, the cuts were only around €100 million if I am not mistaken.

It is not realistic to slice down the Estonian state so thinly. Would Kusti Salm agree to lay off half of his ministry, for example, as has been done in other state institutions, to save hundreds of millions, if the cuts were even that much? Probably not... So, I don't know, there are also some limits to cuts, probably we need to look further and not only for defense costs but to continue improving Estonia's financial situation in general.

This means there are no other options left but to take out a loa, and if my memory does not mislead me, a couple of weeks ago there was a matter of national importance in the Riigikogu, one Thursday, where exactly these issues were being debated.

There were some very good presentations, I listened, including to Professor [Urmas] Varblane from the Bank of Estonia, and the picture was painted very clearly: Where we are, where we have come from, and what awaits us in the future. How costs have grown massively while the revenue base has unfortunately been falling.

The state debt burden has also been going up. It is not in a critical condition, of course, but it is not... we can say so - and please note that I am not some sort of financial specialist, I am just speaking in these terms - that maybe the Estonian state's debt burden is not so enormously large compared with many other countries including in the EU, but the question is finally about solvency and looking forward to the year 2030 and so on.

Returning to the need for ammunition and additional defense expenditures, I have said repeatedly that we are a small country – just 1.3 million people – our GDP per capita is slightly below the EU average; we are not the richest, we spend an extremely large amount, we make this enormous effort.

But it seems to me that in the eyes of some people, we are on a separate planet, defending ourselves on our own.

We talk about collective defense and by the way, as I wrote in a counter-factual statement to Eesti Päevaleht on Kusti Salm's interview; it is very clearly aimed at me, via his words, through his attitude, this hesitation or doubt about whether the allies will come to Estonia's aid in an emergency and in a crisis, if Russia starts aggression, or if they will come at all.

That attitude is utterly unacceptable to me. And such an attitude is clearly in plain sight now to the allies and also to the Russians, which I do not think is a good thing, for us.

As previously noted, Salm also claimed that when meeting with the National Defense Committee, the committee chair supposedly stated that the ammunition shortage is more of a concern for our allies than for Estonia. Do you refute this claim? What is your comment?

I did not cast it like that. I wanted clarity, as I have said before. Second, I asked how much Estonia is cooperating in this direction with major allies who have much larger [budgets] and who have much greater procurement capability as well – we are talking about hundreds of billions of euros – and compare our €1.3 or €1.4 billion...

I asked how much cooperation is being carried out in this direction, that we are not only defending ourselves but also them, and they also have an obligation to contribute to this. Not in such a way that everyone is watching – Germany and France and who else – how the Estonian taxpayer, with blood pouring out of their nose, plows billions of euros into ammunition to repel the Russians but then they calmly spend money on their education and economy and healthcare sectors instead. This was what I said.

I also recalled once again collective defense, that any vision, as per their understanding, that we are capable of deterring Russia essentially alone and even repelling a Russian offensive alone, is a fairy tale.

Do they understand that NATO deters and defends collectively? That is also the reason why we are in NATO. If we do not believe in this in NATO, then things are very, very bad. I certainly believe in our allies and cooperate with them.

They are also present on Estonian soil, precisely to defend Estonia. So all things, a plan B as the former EKRE leader talked about and so on, should be thrown on to the garbage heap. One should think only about collective defense.

It amazes me sometimes when talking about Estonia's national defense without mentioning NATO and the allies even once. How is that even possible?

This €1.6 billion is come what may a large sum, and Salm has complained that nothing has been done so far. Since you also confirmed that defense expenditures need to be boosted, why has it not been actively worked on so far?

I don't know, you would have to ask them that question. Every time we have seen the need, when someone spoke in Japan for instance that it was necessary to spend 6 percent [of GDP per annum on defense], why did he have to say this over in Japan? Why couldn't he come to the National Defense Committee to say it? Then we have invited them to give an explanation, but they do not present a sufficient explanation.

Moreover, there is also a chance on their own initiative that they would then notify the National Defense Committee that they want to come to talk to us.

We have the opportunity also on Tuesdays, for instance, when time is unlimited, to sit even four-five-six

hours continuously, to discuss these issues. There have been enough opportunities, but they have not been taken up.

One thing I definitely want to stress here as a member of the Riigikogu and as the chairman of the National Defense Committee is that if these additional military defense costs are very adequately and clearly presented and justified to us, so there are no questions if this large amount is – maybe it turns out to be €1.4, billion €1.8 billion, we do not know – and if the parties have sat down and found a way to finance this, also at government coalition level, though not only in the government coalition – as this is a long-term matter – then I am firmly in favor of that, there is no question about that.

However, I do not find that in the current situation, without having a clear picture myself, I will start behaving in the same way, publicly demanding that €1.6 billion be given.

I would look like a clown were I to not know anything significant about it myself. When I vote for something, then I must be convinced that it is the right thing and I must also understand what I am voting for. We are talking about a very substantial sum, there is nothing small about it.

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