22.09.23 NEWS ... In an effort to encourage people to behave more lawfully, the government intends to raise fines in the coming years. The Ministry of Justice would also link the fines to, for example, the minimum wage or the average wage, so that in the future there would be no need to increase the fines incrementally in the future.
22.09.23 NEWS ... The Rescue Board decided to close the Kopli Rescue Brigade to meet government cost-cutting targets. The agency concedes that while the cut could save €800,000, it could affect the region's ability to respond to simultaneous calls.
22.09.23 NEWS ... Educators in Estonia may opt to strike in response to much smaller wage hikes than the government had promised, teachers' union network coordinator Madis Somelar said in an appearance on ETV morning program "Terevisioon" on Friday.
22.09.23 NEWS ... A rescue service (Päästeamet) employee, who has taken the Estonian Social Insurance Board (SKA) to court for refusing to pay a superannuated pension commensurate with his length of service, believes the SKA is acting unlawfully. While the Administrative Court ruled in the employee's favor, the case has now been brought to the Circuit Court.
21.09.23 NEWS ... The cyberattack that began on Wednesday had a major impact on Elron ticket sales. The company has never experienced a system outage of this scale before, and the RIA believes it will not be the last.
21.09.23 NEWS ... President Alar Karis has called on the United Nations to make a global environmental initiative which was born in Estonia 15 years ago an official international day.
20.09.23 NEWS ... Tallinn city government has initiated a detailed plan for the northwestern end of Tallinn Airport according to which some 20 commercial buildings are to be built on site. Development plans also call for a new main entrance building as well as the expansion of the current main terminal.
20.09.23 NEWS ... The Estonian Tax and Customs Board (ETCB) changes the work organization of 10 service bureaus, as the demand for face-to-face customer service has decreased.
18.09.23 NEWS ... Over a period spanning nearly five years, erroneous information regarding the medical records of hundreds of patients ended up in the country's centralized medical record system thanks to a glitch in Perearst3, the electronic medical records (EMR) software used by the Estonia's family doctors. Software developer Medisoft confirms that the bug has been fixed.
18.09.23 NEWS ... Minister of Finance Mart Võrklaev (Reform) said that if Estonia wants to fix its state budget and pay for future spending, additional tax hikes will be needed in the next few years. But the minister did not wish to say which taxes may be increased and by how much.
17.09.23 NEWS ... It is impossible to support a version of the state budget where additional higher education funding is capped at 10 or 13 percent in a situation where we have an existing agreement for 15-percent growth over four consecutive years, Reform Party politician Margit Sutrop said.
17.09.23 NEWS ... The World Cleanup Day brought together 54,200 people in Estonia on Saturday. Those who participated in the capital Tallinn said that while the city looks clean, their bags filled with garbage faster than they had anticipated.
17.09.23 NEWS ... While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has no information to suggest Russia might ban the entry of vehicles with Estonian plates as a counter to the EU's recent decision to ban entry to Russian vehicles, leasing providers advise against crossing the Russian border in a car leased in Estonia.
17.09.23 NEWS ... The new head of the opposition Center Party, Mayor of Tallinn Mihhail Kõlvart finds that the government should concentrate on laying the groundwork for growth during state budget deliberations, while signals from Vihula Manor suggest the opposite.
17.09.23 NEWS ... Drivers of passenger cars are increasingly worried about the number of trucks on the Tallinn-Pärnu-Ikla highway, which causes dangerous situations every day. Drivers who frequent the highway say that a head-on collision between two trucks this Wednesday was a long time coming.
15.09.23 NEWS ... Eesti Laul, the annual competition to pick Estonia's entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, is open for applications for 2024, and will remain so to October 23.
15.09.23 NEWS ... In order to receive a pension for earned years, paternal leave must be compensated with longer years of service, per the Social Insurance Board's new interpretation. Previously, years spent caring for a child at home were counted toward the required length of service.
14.09.23 NEWS ... Peterburi Road (Peterburi tee) and Liivalaia tänav will be rebuilt over the next four years, per Tallinn's budget strategy. Plans also include new cycle paths, the development of the Linnahall area, and the completion of the design of the Tallinn Hospital.
14.09.23 NEWS ... As the internet and online services play an increasingly bigger role in people's lives, a total of 93.2 percent of households in Estonia have an internet connection at home, with the number of connected households up 13,000 on year, Statistics Estonia said Thursday.
14.09.23 NEWS ... Issues with contaminated water on the island of Saaremaa affect local wells owned by private citizens, in addition to the water supply at Kuressaare, the island's capital.
12.09.23 NEWS ... Kindergartens and basic school grades one through four will be switching to teaching only in Estonian a year from now. Both Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas (Eesti 200) and former Education Minister Tõnis Lukas (Isamaa) list attitudes and lack of will as the main problems, next to the reform's financial side.
12.09.23 NEWS ... After reviewing the applications of 34 candidates, a selection committee convened to choose the Estonian government's special representative to Ida-Viru County shortlisted nine candidates for the post, the Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture announced Tuesday.
12.09.23 NEWS ... President Alar Karis on Tuesday met with Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople in Kadriorg.
12.09.23 NEWS ... Estonia supports the initiative of democratic forces in Belarus to start issuing their own passports to offset obstacles created by the Lukashenko regime, but emphasizes that whether to recognize them must be a EU-level decision.
12.09.23 NEWS ... The Ministry of Finance has submitted for feedback a set of proposed legislative amendments which would even up currently distinct requirements for employees and officials in Estonia's civil service.
11.09.23 NEWS ... Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told Delfi journalist Vilja Kiisler in an interview that the ISS subjected her husband to a full security check. The PM also said that the security service has not discussed her husband's business activity with her in any context.
11.09.23 NEWS ... Tallinn wants to introduce more greenery and places where people can find shade from the sun in the capital. The city government wants to plant hundreds of large trees for the purpose, while the latter are not available in Estonia in such quantities.
11.09.23 NEWS ... The Ministry of Climate has left out of amendments to the Traffic Act and Road Transport Act a recommendation by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the police to lay down a maximum permitted level of intoxication for cyclists, drivers of scooters and small mopeds.
10.09.23 NEWS ... Saturday evening saw thousands of people take to the street in Central Kuressaare, the capital of the Western Estonian island of Saaremaa — to eat together, at the city's annual street picnic.
09.09.23 NEWS ... President Alar Karis has offered his condolences to the people of Morocco following a major earthquake in that country which has led to the loss of at least 600 lives at the time of writing.
08.09.23 NEWS ... While Tallinn used to be short on high school places to a point where even students who graduated basic school with high marks were having trouble finding a school, the opening of three new state high schools has not only alleviated the problem but reversed it.
08.09.23 NEWS ... The process of reburying Red Army soldiers who died in Estonia during World War II and were buried near Soviet monuments or other unsuitable locations will take a few more years. During the last two years, the remains of around 1,700 Red Army soldiers have been reburied.
08.09.23 NEWS ... The sums local governments pay for schooling a single student can differ up to six times. While it costs €22,000 to fund a student place on the small island of Ruhnu, this drops to under €4,000 in the city of Narva.
07.09.23 NEWS ... While Southeastern Estonia has been having bark beetle trouble for years, the pest is increasingly gaining a foothold in Virumaa. Forest roads are one way hot pockets of the ruinous insects are created.
07.09.23 NEWS ... The City of Tallinn is nearing the end of the preparations for the preliminary design of Tallinn Hospital. This April, the designs were submitted to independent experts for feedback. According to Sven Kruup, head of development at Tallinn Hospital, the preliminary design for the hospital is expected to be ready by the end of September.
06.09.23 NEWS ... Officials sometimes classify documents as for "internal use only" simply because it's convenient. There have even been cases where the system automatically classifies a document, State Secretary Taimar Peterkop said.
06.09.23 NEWS ... Dentists have worried about children's teeth disintegrating for years, with kindergartens now set to teach four and five-year-olds the proper techniques of toothbrushing.
05.09.23 NEWS ... The Tallinn City Government recently released a set of videos on how renovated streets in the capital will look once the work is finished. Experts say that no meaningful change has been achieved, while the new streets waste precious urban space.
05.09.23 NEWS ... The Lääneranna Municipality Government is demanding Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas (Eesti 200) revoke the education license of the Metsküla School and change the license of the Virtsu School based on a corresponding municipality government decision lest the latter turn to court.
05.09.23 NEWS ... A survey conducted by the Estonian National Institute for Health Development (TAI) reveals that the number of overweight or obese children in Estonia has risen significantly in the past four years, in turn threatening to bring a concomitant rise in the number of adults suffering health problems in future.
27.08.23 NEWS ... ERR News sums up the scandal revolving around Prime Minister Kaja Kallas' husband Arvo Hallik's business activity in Russia during the Ukraine war.
04.09.23 NEWS ... Tallinn has six schools this year where some students will be starting their day at noon because the building cannot accommodate everyone at the same time.
04.09.23 NEWS ... The University of Tartu started the new academic year with a ceremony held in front of the school on September 4.
04.09.23 NEWS ... Another outbreak of E.Coli contamination has been found in drinking water in Kuressaare, capital of Saaremaa.
04.09.23 NEWS ... More than 2,000 high-level visitors are to descend on Tallinn this week, to take part in two separate summits in the Telliskivi and harbor areas of town.
03.09.23 NEWS ... The smallest school in Estonia this year is located in Mõisaküla where just four students will study. The country's largest school is the Linnamäe Russian Lyceum in Tallinn's Lasnamäe borough that will cater to nearly 2,000 students.
03.09.23 NEWS ... The schoolyear will be off to a convoluted start for many Tallinners as several important intersections and streets remain closed. While trams 2 and 4 will return to service and a few intersections will open, this will being little alleviation in the grand scheme of the capital's traffic situation.
02.09.23 NEWS ... Tartu City Government is considering introducing new time restrictions on the sale of alcohol. According to the police, doing so would reduce the number of early morning callouts to deal with incidents at the city's nightclubs, which have not fallen even during the summer.
01.09.23 NEWS ... The Tallinn municipal administration is deciding which new tram line to built next. All three preferred lines, Liivalaia, Järve and Pelgulinna, could be completed by the end of the decade, Deputy Mayor Vladimir Svet (Center) said.
01.09.23 NEWS ... President Alar Karis has called for more recognition for student teachers, as September 1, traditionally the start of the new academic year in Estonia, arrives.
