Today, the President of the Riigikogu Ene Ergma met the European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs in the Toompea Castle.The topics of the meeting included EU development policy and Estonia’s contribution thereto.

According to Ergma, Estonia contributes over two thirds of its development cooperation resources in the form of payments into the EU budget, which shows that the EU development policy is of major importance to Estonia’s development cooperation.“Estonia is a small donor, but through the EU we are also represented in states and regions where we are not engaged in any bilateral activities on our own.”

The President of the Riigikogu said that Estonia tries to help the target countries, including Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, first and foremost with their structural reforms, including in the fields of education, modernisation of the state structure and e-governance, drawing from Estonia’s own experiences.Estonia’s activities are mostly concentrated in its near region, where its transition experience is of the greatest value. “The common thread throughout Estonia’s development cooperation has been our support for democratic development, which is why we have assisted the parliaments and electoral committees of our partner countries in updating their election systems, in introducing e-elections for example,” she explained.
 

Pielbags thanked Estonia for its contribution to EU development cooperation, all the while encouraging increased contributions in line with future improvement of the economic situation. Pielbags also presented the recently published Green Book on EU development policy. This accords increasing importance to supporting economic growth in developing countries.EC is planning to adopt specific recommendations for changing EU common development policy at the beginning of next year.   

Also present at today’s meeting were Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Sven Mikser, Chairman of the National Defence Committee Mati Raidma and Member of the European Union Affairs Committee Mart Nutt.
 

The Riigikogu Press Service

 
 

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