反푸틴 선봉에 선 45세 ‘철의 여인’
북유럽에 있는 에스토니아는 발트 3국 중에서도 가장 작은 나라다. 면적은 한반도의 5분의 1 정도이다. 인구는 약 122만명이다. 세계 최대 인터넷 전화 업체인 스카이프가 탄생하고 전국 대부분 지역이 무료 와이파이존인 IT 강국이지만, 유럽에선 변방에 가깝다.
이 소국(小國)이 러시아의 우크라이나 침공 국면에서 발군의 존재감을 발휘하고 있다. 독일의 킬 세계경제연구소가 지난 2일 발표한 자료에 따르면, 지난 1월 24일부터 4월 23일까지 3개월간 각국의 군사, 재정 및 인도적 지원을 집계한 결과 에스토니아는 국내총생산(GDP)의 0.8%인 2억달러(약 2500억원)를 우크라이나에 지원했다. GDP 대비 지원액이 전 세계에서 가장 많다. 같은 기간 112억달러를 지원한 미국은 GDP 대비 0.05%로 열 번째였다.
에스토니아의 이 같은 움직임에는 카야 칼라스(45) 총리의 강력한 의지가 결정적이었다는 분석이다. 뉴욕타임스는 “칼라스는 러시아의 우크라이나 침공에 대해 가장 강경한 목소리를 내는 유럽 지도자”라고 전했다. 1977년생으로 에마뉘엘 마크롱 프랑스 대통령과 동갑내기인 그는 산나 마린(37) 핀란드 총리, 로베르타 메솔라(43·몰타) 유럽의회 의장과 함께 유럽을 대표하는 젊은 여성 지도자로 꼽힌다.
조선일보
~이하 생략~
Baltic states
The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a modern unofficial geopolitical term, typically used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea are sometimes referred to as the "Baltic nations", less often and in historical circumstances also as the "Baltic republics", the "Baltic lands", or simply the Baltics.
Estonia (blue) Latvia (red) Lithuania (yellow)
Estonian flag
Latvian flag
Lithuanian flag
All three Baltic countries are classified as high-income economies by the World Bank and maintain a very high Human Development Index. The three governments engage in intergovernmental and parliamentary cooperation. There is also frequent cooperation in foreign and security policy, defence, energy, and transportation.
The term "Baltic states" ("countries", "nations", or similar) (Estonian: Balti riigid, Baltimaad; Latvian: Baltijas valstis; Lithuanian: Baltijos valstybės) cannot be used unambiguously in the context of cultural areas, national identity, or language. While the majority of the population both in Latvia and Lithuania are indeed Baltic peoples (Latvians and Lithuanians), the majority in Estonia (Estonians) are culturally and linguistically Finnic.
Estonia (Estonian: Eesti [ˈeːsʲti] ), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik),
is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia.
The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland, the larger islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and over 2,200 other islands and islets on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, covering a total area of 45,339 square kilometres (17,505 sq mi).
The capital city Tallinn and Tartu are the two largest urban areas of the country. The Estonian language is the autochthonous and the official language of Estonia; it is the first language of the majority of its population, as well as the world's second most spoken Finnic language.
The land of what is now modern Estonia has been inhabited by humans since at least 9,000 BC. The medieval indigenous population of Estonia was one of the last "pagan" civilisations in Europe to adopt Christianity following the Papal-sanctioned Livonian Crusade in the 13th century.
After centuries of successive rule by the Teutonic Order, Denmark, Sweden, and the Russian Empire, a distinct Estonian national identity began to emerge in the mid-19th century. This culminated in the 24 February 1918 Estonian Declaration of Independence from the then warring Russian and German Empires, and, after the end of World War I, in the 1918–1920 War of Independence where Estonians were able to repel the Bolshevik Russian invasion and successfully defended their newborn freedom.
Democratic throughout most of the interwar period, Estonia declared neutrality at the outbreak of World War II, but the country was repeatedly contested, invaded and occupied, first by Stalinist Soviet Union in 1940, then by Nazi Germany in 1941, and ultimately reoccupied in 1944 by, and annexed into, the USSR as an administrative subunit (Estonian SSR).
After the loss of its de facto independence to the Soviet Union, Estonia's de jure state continuity was preserved by diplomatic representatives and the government-in-exile. Following the bloodless Estonian "Singing Revolution" of 1988–1990, the nation's de facto independence was restored on 20 August 1991.
Estonia is a developed country, with a high-income advanced economy; ranking very high in the Human Development Index. The sovereign state of Estonia is a democratic unitary parliamentary republic, administratively subdivided into 15 maakond (counties).
With a population of just over 1.3 million, it is one of the least populous members of the European Union, the Eurozone, the OECD, the Schengen Area, and NATO.
Estonia has consistently ranked highly in international rankings for quality of life, education, press freedom, digitalisation of public services and the prevalence of technology companies.
*Estonia’s HDI value for 2019 is 0.892— which put the country in the very high human development
category—positioning it at 29 out of 189 countries and territories. The rank is shared with Italy.
Estonia has pursued the development of the e-government, with 99 percent of the public services being available on the web 24 hours a day. In 2005 Estonia became the first country in the world to introduce nationwide binding Internet voting in local elections of 2005. In 2019 parliamentary elections 44% of the total votes were cast over the internet.
In the most recent parliamentary elections of 2019, five parties gained seats at Riigikogu. The head of the Centre Party, Jüri Ratas, formed the government together with Conservative People's Party and Isamaa, while Reform Party and Social Democratic Party became the opposition. In January 2021 Ratas resigned as prime minister in the wake of a corruption scandal, and Reform Party leader Kaja Kallas became Estonia's first female prime minister. The new government was a two-party coalition between country's two biggest political parties Reform Party and Centre Party.
Kaja Kallas
Kaja Kallas (Estonian: [ˈkɑjɑ ˈkɑlːɑs]; born 18 June 1977) is an Estonian politician and Prime Minister of Estonia since 26 January 2021. She has been the leader of the Reform Party since 2018, and a member of the Riigikogu (the Estonian Parliament) since 2019, and previously from 2011 to 2014.
Kallas served as a member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2018, representing the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Before her election to parliament, she was an attorney specialising in European and Estonian competition law.
As Prime Minister, Kallas has attracted international attention as a leader in efforts to support Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, delivering more military equipment to Ukraine as a portion of GDP per capita than any other country in the world.
Early life and education
Born in Tallinn on 18 June 1977, Kaja Kallas is the daughter of Siim Kallas, who was the 14th prime minister of Estonia and later a European Commissioner. During the Soviet deportations from Estonia, her mother Kristi, six months old at the time, was deported to Siberia with her mother and grandmother in a cattle car and lived there until she was ten years old. Kallas's great-grandfather was Eduard Alver, one of the founders of the Republic of Estonia on 24 February 1918, and the first chief of the Estonian Police from 1918 to 24 May 1919. Kallas has distant Latvian and Baltic German ancestry through her father's side of the family.
Kallas graduated from the University of Tartu in 1999 with a bachelor's degree in law. She lived in France and Finland briefly while training in European law. From 2007, she attended the Estonian Business School, earning an EMBA (Executive Master of Business Administration) in economics in 2010.
Professional career
Kallas became a member of the Estonian Bar Association in 1999, and an attorney-at-law in 2002. She became a partner in law firm Luiga Mody Hääl Borenius and Tark & Co and worked as an executive coach in the Estonian Business School. She is also a member of the European Antitrust Alliance. In 2011, she was placed on inactive status as a member of the Estonian Bar Association. In November 2018, Kallas published her memoir MEP: 4 aastat Euroopa Parlamendis (MEP: Four Years in the European Parliament), in which she describes her life and work in Brussels from 2014 to 2018.
Political career
Member of the Estonian Parliament (2011–2014)
Member of the European Parliament (2014–2018)
Return to national politics
Kallas won the leadership election held on 14 April 2018 and became the first female leader of a major political party in Estonia.
On 14 November 2020, Kallas was re-elected as leader of the Reform Party at a Reform Party Assembly.
Prime Minister of Estonia
On 25 January 2021, after the resignation of Jüri Ratas as prime minister following a scandal, Kallas formed a Reform-led coalition government with the Centre Party, making her the first female prime minister in Estonia's history.
During the latter half of 2021, the 2021–2022 global energy crisis also disrupted the Estonian economy; businesses were forced to temporarily shut down, while the public requested government aid to pay for the high electricity and heating prices. Kallas initially resisted calls for government aid, suggesting that the government should search for long-term solutions rather than handing out government benefits, and that a free market should not require consistent government intervention to keep people afloat. The energy crisis nearly caused the collapse of the coalition government. Kallas noted in a speech that the high cost of natural gas coupled with the Russia-Ukraine crisis was driving the increase in energy prices; and that the green energy measures Estonia adopted limited what the government could do to handle the crisis. In January 2022, Kallas announced a 245 million euro plan to reduce to cost of energy from September 2021 to March 2022. The energy crisis impacted Kallas' popularity in Estonia.
During the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis, Kallas asserted that the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline was "a geopolitical project not an economic one" and urged that the pipeline be terminated. She also stated that Europe's dependence on Russian natural gas was a significant political problem. In January 2022 Kallas committed Estonia to donating howitzers to Ukraine to assist in its defense against a possible Russian invasion, pending German approval as the howitzers were originally purchased from Germany. When Germany delayed in giving an answer, Estonia sent American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles instead in the first weeks of February 2022. Following Russia's recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, Kallas demanded that the European Union introduce sanctions on Russia. Kallas was praised domestically for her leadership during the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine started on February 24, Estonia along with other allies triggered Article 4 of NATO. Kallas pledged to support Ukraine with political and materiel support. By April 2022, 0.8% of Estonia's GDP per capita in military equipment had been handed over to Ukraine. Kallas has been praised both in Estonia and internationally and abroad as a leading pro-Ukrainian voice in the war, with New Statesman calling her "Europe's New Iron Lady". She has also strongly supported the admission of Ukraine to the European Union, asserting that there was a "moral duty" to do so.
'Putin's Appetite Will Only Grow.' Estonia's
Prime Minister Says We're Not Doing Enough to
Stop Russia
Kaja Kallas, the Prime Minister of Estonia, photographed at the Stenbock House in Tallinn, Estonia on March 28.
The EU has a 'moral duty' to make Ukraine a member state: Estonia PM
Updated: 09/03/2022
The European Union has a “moral duty” to make Ukraine a member state and should consider using military force to counter Russian aggression, according to Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of Estonia.
Speaking at the European Parliament's monthly plenary sessions in Strasbourg, Kallas said that the EU has “changed more in one week than in 30 years” and called for Brussels to invest in state-of-the-art defence technology.
Prime Ministers of Finland and Estonia meet in Tallinn
Prime Minister Sanna Marin and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas met in Tallinn on Monday 7 March. In their meeting, the prime ministers discussed the security situation in Europe, cooperation on topical EU matters and bilateral relations between Finland and Estonia.
“In our meeting, we expressed our shared concern about Ukraine. Russia must stop its military actions immediately. Finland and Estonia stand together with the other EU Member States in defending Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty. Our thoughts are with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, and we are taking action to support them. Finland has provided Ukraine with financial and humanitarian assistance, and with protective equipment and arms,” Prime Minister Marin said at a press conference in Tallinn.
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