Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi said, appearing on ETV's "Esimene stuudio" evening talk show, that governments have repeatedly accommodated demands from large groups such as teachers and rescue workers, arguing that automatic pay increases tied to the average salary should be avoided.

Ligi said promises that certain salaries would reach a fixed percentage of Estonia's average wage were often better understood as goals. Asked about Education Minister Kristina Kallas' statement four years ago that teachers' salaries would reach 120 percent of the average by 2027, Ligi said she had been careless.

"Looking at even a slightly longer time frame, teachers' salaries have climbed out of a deep hole and reached a tolerable level," he said.

Teachers want their minimum salary to rise to around €2,312. Rescue workers, whose pay has fallen particularly far behind, have been offered a minimum salary of €1,654.

"People make their own choices and they often have several options," Ligi said. "I can't really judge that, but the tone they use when demanding money is, to put it mildly, distasteful to me."

He said the 24 percent pay raise given to rescue workers in 2019 had not been sustainable because their salaries did not rise again in subsequent years.

"I don't agree with pay hikes like that," Ligi said, arguing that pay should reflect the complexity and workload of a job and that structural reforms also need to be considered. "It can't be that the structure just keeps expanding — more and more people on ever-higher salaries."

Ligi said rescue workers' pay would rise faster than inflation or by roughly the same amount, adding that those receiving favorable treatment should not be the ones complaining the loudest.

Asked whether parties promising public-sector pay raises for the next four years were misleading voters, Ligi was categorical: "Either way, they are lying, because in reality no government indexes these salaries in its budget strategy."

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