On Wednesday, the coalition parties agreed on a compromise, which had also been endorsed by the Social Democratic party (SDE) on Tuesday evening. The coalition has agreed to amend the Constitution so that holders of grey passports will still be able to vote in local elections, in addition to citizens of the Republic of Estonia and other EU and NATO countries. The draft means that citizens of Russia and Belarus will no longer be able to vote in local elections in Estonia.

"This has now been 100 percent agreed by the coalition partners. They will continue to vote in local elections and so, the baby will not be thrown out with the bathwater. The other part of it, which was the last discussion we had this morning, was that we were able to present our position to our partners regarding international agreements," said Priit Lomp, chair of the SDE's Riigikogu group.

The change also means that Estonia cannot enter into bilateral agreements with other countries in order to allow their citizens to vote in Estonia. The original plan had been to write that possibility into the Constitution.

"With the help of our partners, this issue was pushed off the table," Lomp said.

On Wednesday, representatives of the coalition parties met several times to refine the text of the draft.

"What has been agreed today was largely the Reform Party's vision, from the moment we found that the right for citizens of aggressor states to vote in Estonia cannot be ruled out without changing the Constitution," said Reform Party MP Eerik-Niiles Kross.

Toomas Uibo, chair of Eesti 200's Riigikogu group, said they have always been of the opinion that citizens of aggressor states should not be allowed to vote in Estonia. The current option, whereby grey passport holders retain the right to vote, is a compromise.

"That is the price we have to pay today, unfortunately. To ensure that citizens of the aggressor state are not able to vote in 2025," Uibo said.

On Wednesday evening, the draft constitutional amendment was signed by the three coalition parties. On Thursday, it will be submitted to the Riigikogu.

The opposition Center Party has said it does not support the constitutional amendment. The coalition's draft is also not supported by EKRE, who say that grey passport holders should not be allowed to vote in local elections either.

"If they want to get this done urgently, they obviously need to find votes from the opposition, whether they have found votes from everywhere else – from the Center Party or from Isamaa – or whether they think they can somehow convince us, I don't know. But our current position is that we will not support this solution," said EKRE leader Martin Helme.

Isamaa, on the other hand, wants to move forward with two draft amendments to the Constitution with the aim of reaching a compromise after the first reading.

"The coalition's draft, which was sent today includes a proposal to guarantee voting rights for stateless persons at a constitutional level. We propose that this provision be removed from the original text and confirm that if that is the case, we are prepared to be co-signatories," said head of Isamaa's Riigikogu group Helir-Valdor Seeder.

"If, however, this is not acceptable to the coalition parties' Riigikogu groups, we propose that both the draft constitutional amendment initiated by Isamaa and the draft constitutional amendment already pending in the Riigikogu be discussed by the Constitutional Committee next week and then submitted for a first reading the week after next," Seeder said.

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