Yana Toom, a member of the European Parliament, discussed on Radio Kuku’s program on December 7 “Sihik” on topical issues of the European Union.
Host Ainar Ruussaar: How much do you discuss in the European Parliament that your role could be greater, and how much do you discuss that the European Union should or should be reformed?
Yana Toom: We essentially discuss every day and everywhere. There is no consensus. During the previous session in Strasbourg, three weeks ago, we had adopted a report that had been drawn up after such a democratic exercise was held across Europe the year before last, the Conference on the Future of Europe. The results of this were in the report.
I am in the camp of those who think that the European Union needs to be reformed. And I watch with amazement how stupid arguments are made in Estonia – that we don’t need it, that if we abandon the principle of consensus in decision-making, our voice will never be heard again. There are 27 countries in the EU, and it takes months if not years to reach a consensus. By that time, all these China, America, Canada, Russia have already made their decisions, but the European Union is sitting in the corner, looking for a consensus. And if there are 9 new members – imagine seeking a consensus with 36 countries, one of which is, for example, Germany and the other is Ukraine. We’re getting nowhere. This must be changed. It is clear even to a hedgehog, but this hedgehog does not live in Estonia.
How much is the topic of Finland’s decision to close the eastern border today in the European Parliament, and how much is the topic that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania can do the same?
It would have been talked about if some malicious person, e.g. Yana Toom, had started stomping their feet and saying what are you doing. There is no such person, and therefore it is not talked about. It came up in the plenary, we had a discussion there, where the Finnish deputies talked about the pressure that Russia is ready to exert on their borders. Everyone nodded along, and the topic was off.
In the summer, you drew attention to the fact that the impact of the sanctions against Russia affects many Russian citizens who have been banned from entering Estonia, if I understood correctly, not quite justified. Listen, Russia is the aggressor and its citizens are citizens of the aggressor country. Whom to allow across the border and who not, this is still Estonia’s only possible decision. Do you think that the visa ban is not justified?
In this case, I did not protect Russian citizens (although I am not a supporter of the principle of collective responsibility), but Estonian citizens and permanent residents of Estonia. It is about their relatives. I don’t really like the real estate saga, but it more or less leaves me cold. But if the sister can’t come to see the sick brother, the son can’t say goodbye to his father, it’s not okay. And this is a big problem in Estonia.
We submitted a petition to the European Parliament, we discussed it, the European Commission said that they asked the Estonian government if everything was fine in this matter, and the government replied that yes, of course, everything is fine. To which I said, look, we collected the stories of 29 people, their details are only in my office, no one asked for them, so how did you verify that? At which the representative of the European Commission widened his eyes and said: well, they just asked.
I sent inquiries to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Interior and asked how these statistics look like. I received an answer about how many people were denied visas for various reasons. But when I asked how many people who actually should have received visas because they belong to the exceptions established by the Republic of Estonia, did not receive this visa, I was told that such statistics do not exist. Here is my next question: on what basis is it possible to claim to the European Commission that everything is fine?
You recently organized the conference “Let’s end violence against women” in Tallinn. It is certainly a problem, but is it pan-European?
This is a pan-European problem, which greatly worsened during the pandemic when people were forced to be in one room 24/7. Some of this problem is much worse in other parts of Europe, for example we don’t have forced marriages, forced sterilization, as far as I know, female circumcision is not a problem and so on. But our women are beaten, almost 42% of Estonian women who have ever been in a relationship have experienced violence. In the European Union, three women die at the hands of their partners every day.
