The main issue in this crisis isn’t one of trust, but the fact that the Helmes have finally exposed themselves as scheming, clueless schoolyard bullies. Letting father and son stay on means that Prime Minister Jüri Ratas is ready to compromise even on principal matters of decency and conduct to keep his government together, which doesn’t bode well for the coming months.
September 2019
What is tangible at the 2019 Opinion Festival in Paide is the new trinity of Estonian public debate that has crystallized in recent years, with a progressive, open-society focus on one end, a very solid technocratic middle, and an almost isolationist, hard-line national conservative focus on the other.