Estonian party leaders criticize Kallas’ speech on possible blackouts in Estonia

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Sep. 23 () –

The leaders of the Estonian parliamentary parties have criticized this Friday the emergency speech delivered on Thursday by the Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, on possible power cuts by Russia and have assured that it has caused anxiety and uncertainty in the population.

“I think the prime minister’s intention was good, but perhaps she did not assess the level of social tension, considering the events of the last few days: the mobilization, the war news from Ukraine and the threats from Russia,” the president said. of the Social Democratic Party, Lauri Laanemets, who also serves as Minister of the Interior.

For his part, the president of the conservative Isamaa party, Helir-Valdor Seeder, praised Kallas’s speech and explained that, instead of being “reassuring”, it created “additional anxiety and uncertainty”. “I did not understand exactly what the message was and why it was done,” he added, according to ERR.

Along the same lines, although more harshly, Martin Helme, the president of the nationalist Conservative People’s Party (EKRE), explained that the prime minister has been putting on “a show” since February.

“The result of this is that we are one of the most hostile countries on its borders in the eyes of the Kremlin. And now this reality is starting to come in,” he said, adding that “these ramblings” of the Kallas Reform Party “are going to drive people crazy.”

The prime minister’s Thursday night speech warned that Estonia has been preparing to disconnect from Russia’s frequency-range power grids “for years”. “If Russia does this abruptly, we may have blackouts,” Kallas said in an interview with an Estonian public broadcaster, as reported by Bloomberg.