Center Party to no longer employ Savisaar as history adviser
The leadership of the Center Party decided on Wednesday evening to no longer employ its former long-time chairman, Edgar Savisaar, as its history adviser. Along with his salary, Savisaar will also lose other perks.
Prime Minister and Center Party chairman Jüri Ratas said after the leadership meeting that they had met to discuss how to support the former party chairman in the future, and that the decision was made that the party would no longer employ Savisaar as its history adviser.
At the same time, the leadership agreed that the party should still support him where possible, Ratas said.
"Though Edgar Savisaar preferred to distance himself politically from the Center Party in the [2017 local] elections, his contribution to building the party and to the development of Tallinn and of Estonia cannot be underestimated. And there is certainly a human aspect as well," the prime minister added.
The leadership decided to continue to grant financial support to Savisaar also in the future, but with no more than €1,000 gross a month, Ratas told ERR's Aktuaalne kaamera newscast.
The party's secretary general, Mihhail Korb, told ERR that despite the fact that opinions differed, all of the leadership members backed the decision. "The leadership still decided that this man needs help at this point, this man needs support," Korb said.
According to Korb, Savisaar's salary as history adviser amounted to more than €2,000 a month. In addition there were different expenses Savisaar had been compensated for, as well as help with his legal fees to some degree that the former chairman could now no longer count on.
A few months after Jüri Ratas replaced him as chairman, Savisaar was officially hired by the party in February this year as its history adviser. Savisaar is still facing graft, money laundering, and embezzlement charges while most of his financial assets were confiscated or frozen by the authorities in the course of the investigation against him.
Editor: Dario Cavegn