EKRE expects more cooperation from coalition to amend Constitution
The Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) will not agree to the proposed Constitutional amendment if it preserves the right for non-citizens to vote. According EKRE leader Martin Helme, the coalition has to listen to their input on the draft, as they will need EKRE's votes to amend the Constitution.
"Our position is that the right to vote must be limited to Estonian citizens. In addition to this, according to our accession treaty with the European Union, citizens of European countries will also be included. This should however, be the clear borderline, where we distinguish between citizens and non-citizens," said Helme.
"We do not agree to start creating categories of people who are not Estonian citizens and who either can or cannot vote. We are certainly not among the initiators and it is very questionable whether we can support such a bill in the hall," Helme said.
According to Helme, citizens of NATO countries are a separate issue and EKRE has no objection to the U.S. or Canadian citizens having the right to vote, for example, as there are few of them in Estonia. There are however tens of thousands of people with grey passports.
"[People from] NATO countries are not non-citizens. Here I would actually have expected the coalition to talk us through these things a bit more, rather than just presenting us with the facts. We have made it clear to both the Reform Party and Eesti 200 in our discussions that there are certain things we cannot agree with in any case," Helme said.
According to Helme, there is already a draft amendment to the Constitution before the Riigikogu, which the coalition does not like. Furthermore, the coalition's draft is significantly different from EKRE's.
"It does not start from the premise that the right to vote is citizenship-based, but from the presumption that there are some large groups in society, who are thought to be more likely to support the Center Party – Russian citizens – and some groups in society, who are thought to support the Reform Party or the Social Democrats (SDE)," Helme said.
"We are talking about the right to vote as being a privilege that only citizens have," Helme said.
Asked how EKRE would behave if the coalition put its draft to a vote, Helme said the party has not yet decided.
"The coalition needs our votes. It is not enough for the coalition if we do not vote. I think the coalition should make an effort to listen to our input," Helme said.
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Editor: Barbara Oja, Michael Cole
