The amendments approved at Friday's committee meeting underline the key role of completing the construction of both the Rail Baltica railway and Via Baltica highway in increasing Northern Europe's defense readiness, as well as the importance of cooperation between EU member states in the protection of underwater infrastructure and repair of damages to it, according to a press release.

According to MP Peeter Tali (Eesti 200), chair of the European Union Affairs Committee, Estonia's positions reinforce the will to decisively increase Europe's defense readiness.

"Estonia's positions are based on the report by former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and strongly support the actions of the EU and its member states to strengthen Europe's civil and military preparedness," Tali said.

"Cooperation with NATO is important for defense readiness and crisis resilience, but at the same time, the EU must avoid duplicating NATO and clearly take into account and support NATO's collective defense needs," he added.

Tali noted that the development of vital infrastructure for north-south connections, i.e. completing the construction of the Rail Baltica railway and Via Baltica highway, has an important and time-critical key role in strengthening Europe's civilian and military readiness.

"Currently, Latvia, Estonia and Finland are like island states in terms of connections," he acknowledged.

It was pointed out at Friday's meeting that the exchange of information should be promoted, and the threat picture conveyed to decision-makers. EU leaders do possess threat awareness, but it's still taking too much time and effort to implement ideas in member states. Estonia wants to give additional momentum to various initiatives by providing guidance to the new European Commission.

Also addressed Friday was the issue of boosting crisis resilience, and it was noted that military, hybrid, climate and pandemic threats all need to be taken into consideration. The Riigikogu committee noted that it is important to handle the prepositioning of supplies and acquisition of the necessary resources for coping in various crises. Estonia's positions underline that it must be possible to utilize the EU's common civil protection and rescue capabilities in the event of a military emergency, and that this threat must be taken into account in the prepositioning of supplies.

Regarding critical and vital underwater infrastructure, the European Union Affairs Committee emphasized the need to boost Estonia's ability to respond quickly to disruptions, as well as to detain vessels that have caused damage to such infrastructure. Estonia's positions also underline the need to establish a system in the EU that would allow for the rapid repair of underwater infrastructure.

Estonia supports actions that strengthen the EU's readiness to prevent subversion and sabotage by hostile third countries, make it more difficult to carry out such operations as well as enhance the punishment and political attribution of such activities.

The Riigikogu committee decided to amend Estonia's positions to highlight the importance of both Rail Baltica and Via Baltica. Estonia believes that the promotion and financing of military mobility, both by rail and by road, plays a vital role in increasing the EU's defense readiness.

The committee also added a position according to which it is necessary to speed up and enhance cooperation between member states in order to harmonize approaches to prosecuting the owners of vessels that have damaged underwater infrastructure as well as compensating for the damage caused.

The Estonian government's positions regarding boosting Europe's civilian and military readiness were presented by the Government Office's national security and defense coordination director Erkki Tori and European Union affairs director Katrin Juhandi.

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