H. E. Mr. Mait Martinson:

I am falling behind. There were good articles on Rail Baltica in recent issues of The Economist and the Financial Times. We are glad to finally see that a connect Europe facility is getting off the ground. A joint facility has been created between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, with Finland and Estonia as the main forces behind it. The route should be finalised by the end of 2015 and, everything going to plan, we expect the real work to commence two years after that. We still face several hurdles, including different views on the route. The route as proposed at present does not go through Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and it was creating uneasiness at one point. I understand that solutions have been found because it is better to have a connection than not to have one.

In regard to elections and minority rights, we staged local elections on 20 October. The capital was, once again, the leading force in terms of support from non-Estonian speakers. A good balance was reached. In respect of our angle on the situation, I would compare it to Ireland. In Ireland, people with different backgrounds bring something with them and it is up to the nation and the society to figure out how to benefit from their knowledge and differences. They can enrich the range of possibilities. The most sought after workforce in Estonia are people in their late 20s who speak at least three languages. For this reason, those who have a good knowledge of Russian seem to do well because it easier for them to pick up Estonian and English. They are seen by employers as offering more advantages than their Estonian compatriots because they can work simultaneously with the north, east and the west.

We mainly construct electricity lines over ground but that is an ongoing debate. The facilities to produce electricity and transfer lines have been separated so that different operators control them. The bills are growing longer because one pays for 13 different lines, as well as crane taxes, and so forth. We are in a unique position in regard to fossil fuels because we use oil shale. This is a strange product to dig out but it is different to shale oil. Some 90% of our electricity is produced from oil shale. As it has less energy value than coal, it is in our interest to find a proper balance.