Reform Party, Eesti 200's coalition talks delegations not yet set

The Reform Party and Eesti 200 have not yet decided on who will make up their delegations for upcoming government coalition talks. The first planning meeting between the two parties is scheduled for Wednesday, after which negotiations will proceed topic by topic.
"We need to move forward very quickly on security and economic issues — there are decisions there that have been waiting for a long time." Eesti 200 chair Kristina Kallas told ERR.
"We just need to go through them," she said, reiterating that she believes decisions in those two areas need to be made rather quickly.
"But insofar as we've exchanged opinions with the prime minister, we have a fairly shared understanding that we don't need long coalition talks regarding the economy and security; we already know what we want to do there," Kallas continued. "We have a shared understanding of how to proceed [on those matters], and for those we could already proceed to drafting specific decisions to reach an agreement on these basic principles over the next few weeks and then begin working on broader plans in other sectors."
The Eesti 200 chair stressed that the organization of government positions cannot be delayed either. "We can't drag this on for months — the government's ministerial positions need to be settled relatively quickly so that the government can start taking action," she acknowledged.
"For all the other areas where we need to set somewhat longer-term plans, we'd like to have more in-depth negotiations with experts and data-driven decision-making," Kallas added. "We'd do more thorough analyses than has typically been the case for coalition agreements."
The Eesti 200 board is meeting on Tuesday evening, and will decide who will represent the party in their coalition talks delegation.
Their delegation is likely to include party chair and current Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas, former party chair and current Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna as well as experts from relevant fields depending on the topics at hand.
"Yes, that will likely be the case," Kallas confirmed. "If the format for negotiations is likely two plus two, meaning two people from each party for talks regarding the quick topics like security, the economy and maybe also governance. But for other areas, we still need to involve experts from those fields."
The Reform Party hasn't decided on who will comprise their own delegation yet either.
"This will be determined by the party board at tomorrow morning's meeting," Reform Party spokesperson Kristofer Rennel told ERR.
According to Rennel, Reform's first meeting will be held Wednesday morning, where the party will determine its plan for the upcoming coalition talks with Eesti 200.
Two is a party, three is a crowd
Estonia's ruling coalition of the Reform Party, Eesti 200 and the Social Democratic Party (SDE) fell apart on Monday after SDE leader Lauri Läänemets said his party had been "thrown out" of the government.
Reform and Eesti 200 leaders have confirmed they plan to move ahead without a third partner and pursue more right-wing policy, which the Social Democrats had apparently been hindering.
The two parties combined have a narrow 52-vote majority in the 101-seat Riigikogu.
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Editor: Aleksander Krjukov, Aili Vahtla