Majority calls for resignation
Husband puts Estonian PM in trouble
08/25/2023 5:24 p.m
After the start of the Russian invasion, Kaja Kallas calls on companies to sever contacts in the country of the aggressor. It’s just stupid that her own husband has it and apparently continues it. Daily newspapers are calling for her resignation as prime minister. A majority of the population supports this.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is under pressure because of her husband’s contacts in Russia. Two major Estonian newspapers called on her to resign after it was revealed that her husband Arvo Hallik has a stake in a company that has been operating in Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine. While Kallas defended her husband, the latter stated that he was selling his shares in the company in question. Several polls also showed a majority for her resignation.
Kallas is one of Russia’s harshest critics and has urged European companies to sever ties with Moscow. She is also considered a potential future NATO Secretary General. President Alar Karis and the Social Democrat coalition partner called on the Prime Minister to make a detailed statement. “I am absolutely certain and confident that my husband’s companies are not involved in immoral activities,” Kallas was quoted as saying by Estonian TV channel ERR on Wednesday.
Hallik is said to indirectly own a 25 percent stake in a company that supplies an aerosol canister factory in Russia, owned by another Estonian company. Since the beginning of the war in February 2022, the company is said to have earned 1.5 million euros from supplying the factory, reports the Estonian daily “Eesti Päevaleht”. Hallik said he wanted to help the other Estonian company.
Kallas won the parliamentary elections in the EU country with the liberal Reform Party in March. The Reform Party forms a coalition with the liberal Estonia 200 party and the Social Democratic Party.