On Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Kristen Michal (Reform) met President Karis to propose the dismissal from government of four Social Democratic Party ministers. The prime minister and president then spoke behind closed doors for around 20 minutes. Speaking to journalists after the meeting, President Alar Karis expressed hope that the new government would be in place as soon as possible.

"I will give the Prime Minister the opportunity to sign a new coalition agreement and certainly to appoint new ministers. After all, there are a lot of things that need to be resolved, in particular the energy issue, which we discussed, as well as economic growth and the creation of environmental conditions, along with many other issues that need to be settled promptly," said President Karis.

"I hope to be here in two to three weeks with the new ministers and the coalition agreement, to present to both the President and the public," said Prime Minister Kristen Michal.

The new coalition negotiations have not yet officially started. Kristina Kallas, leader of Eesti 200, said she had arranged a first meeting with Michal for Wednesday. In Kallas' view, a completely new coalition agreement could emerge.

"To take the old texts as [the basis for the new] text and to bind ourselves in advance to prior agreements is, I think, unwise, because there is a need for significantly more changes than we have previously agreed on. I think we would rather prefer to proceed from a new agreement, so to speak. We will have to look at all these things," Kallas said.

Kallas believes that on economic and security issues, a common language will swiftly be found with the Reform Party. In other areas, however, fundamental reforms would have to be agreed upon and that will take longer. It will also depend on whether the new government has the same number of ministers as the previous one, as well as which specific tax increases will disappear and which will remain in place.

"We don't necessarily have to continue with 14 ministers, but where or what [we do], we'll discuss now. It also depends on the reforms we want to implement. For example, reforms in healthcare, in education, in culture and sport. We need to look at the state of the budget before we announce any really concrete steps." Kallas explained.

"I have some ideas, but I need to coordinate them in the government first. In any case, we do have the potential to make public administration more efficient. However, there is not a never-ending pot of money, because we actually have a relatively economical state apparatus. It is mostly in social policy, that things can be made more efficient. It's certainly about investment – we invest a lot as a state compared to other countries," said Minister of Finance Jürgen Ligi (Reform).

The fact that public support for Eesti 200 has fallen below the electoral threshold and that the combined support of the two governing parties is below 20 percent does not bother either Prime Minister Michal or Kallas when it comes to forming a new government.

"The goal must be decisions, not ratings, so the ratings reflect the decisions and the vision of whether this party stands for what the voters expect. If the goal were ratings, the previous government could have focused only on popular decisions. Our goal is to make decisions in difficult times and that is more important in the historical sense," Michal said.

"We continue to be the second largest political group in the Riigikogu. We continue to have 13 MPs in a solid Eesti 200 group. So we will have the support of the voters when the government really starts to show what it is doing," said Kallas, who added that her party's ratings have been impacted by the confusing actions taken by the three-party coalition government up to now.

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