On Monday, the former head of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi published a report saying the European Union must significantly increase its investments to keep pace with the U.S. and China.

"Mario Draghi proposes that we should increase investment by up to €800 billion a year. From the Ministry of Economic Affairs' side, I think this is a sensible step. If we do not invest, if we do not invest in productivity, if we do not invest in the use of new technologies, our economy will not grow," said Sandra Särav, deputy secretary general for economy and innovation at the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.

A joint loan could be taken by member states, Draghi suggested. Estonia has made similar calls in the past to fund defense spending.

Minister of Finance Jürgen Ligi (Reform) also said European allies must spend more on security, but he is skeptical about the prospect of a joint loan.

"If we talk only about defence bonds, there are several questions immediately. First of all, how can we avoid countries saying that Europe is already spending here, so we will spend less. There is a very high risk that responsibility will be dispersed," he commented.

Karsten Staehr, professor of macroeconomics at TalTech university, said Draghi's plan has echoes of the EU's efforts to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Repeating it doesn't seem like a good idea, he believes.

"Here in Estonia, we got almost one billion euros from the [European Union's] recovery and resilience facility. So, we got a new tram line here in Tallinn, they got a new hospital in Viljandi. But if we look at the numbers [state of the economy] for the last three years in Estonia, it doesn't look so fantastic," he said.

The German finance minister has already said Berlin does not support the plan.

Särav said: "Estonia has not yet made a decision on this. Europe already has a lot of public capital. Perhaps we should look at how to attract more private venture capital."

Draghi did not only propose taking out loans. The obligations and restrictions imposed on companies must be reduced and member states' laws harmonized.

Niclas Poitiers, a research fellow at the Bruegel think tank, said: "Right now as an investor, if you want to invest in the EU, you have 27 different capital markets. You have 27 different [sets of] rules under which companies operate. So you don't really know, if you are an American investor and you invest in an Estonian company, what the insolvency laws are in Estonia. And the cost of actually learning how insolvency in Estonia works are probably [too] prohibitively expensive for you to not even bother."

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