Kadri Põlendik

1 week ago | news.err.ee | Kadri Põlendik

Through the Estonian Employers' Confederation, business leaders have voiced concern about delays in planning procedures, inconsistent quality in their processing and the subjective nature of decisions made by officials. While the newly drafted bill is relevant, it does not adequately address these issues, said Hando Sutter, CEO of the Estonian Employers' Confederation, in comments to ERR.

3 weeks ago | news.err.ee | Kadri Põlendik

Since the start of this year, there have been problems booking time slots through the digital registry. ERR and "Aktuaalne Kaamera" reported on the issue a month ago, but the situation has not significantly improved. Anett Pärs, product manager for the Health Insurance Fund's digital registry, said some patients may receive an error message saying their chosen time cannot be booked.

3 weeks ago | news.err.ee | Kadri Põlendik

For Social Democrat (SDE) Piret Hartman, one of her personal priorities before leaving her post as agriculture minister was food prices. At the end of last year, she requested that the Center of Estonian Rural Research and Knowledge (METK) analyze whether food products should be subject to a lower VAT rate. Minister of Finance Jürgen Ligi (Reform) has repeatedly stated that there is no point to a special VAT regime, and was critical of Hartman's plan at the time as well.

3 weeks ago | news.err.ee | Kadri Põlendik

For several weeks, there has been discussion about whether unused money from the EU's cohesion funds could be directed toward defense. In Estonia, the amount of such unallocated funds totals €1 billion. It has now emerged that commissioners are considering allowing only the use of the Regional Development Fund. This is stated in a document seen by the publication Euractiv, and the same information has reached Estonia's Ministry of Finance.

1 month ago | news.err.ee | Kadri Põlendik

While the state budget, which was drawn up based on the ministry's forecast, expected a general government budget deficit of 3 percent GDP last year, according to preliminary figures published by Statistics Estonia on Tuesday, the actual deficit for 2024 came to 1.7 percent. "Despite such a challenging economic environment, both the labor market and wage growth remained faster than expected in the second half of last year," Lättemäe highlighted.