Analytics, Budget, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Legislation

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"Estonia's state budget is strong and the government is committed to keeping the budget in balance within the goals of the medium to long-term perspective. The government submitted to the parliament a state budget draft with a structural deficit of 0.25 percent of the gross domestic product. It is in accordance with Estonia's fiscal goal and this accordance is what the European Commission assesses," Ratas said in a press release.

In addition to a responsible fiscal policy, the European Commission has made recommendations to Estonia for reducing the gender pay gap as well as increasing public benefit from research and development activities. According to Ratas, these goals are all important to the government and the government has already introduced some measures regarding the issues.

Ratas emphasized that the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has to be strong and functioning in order for Europe's economy to grow and the risk for potential crises arising would be smaller. "The European Economic and Monetary Union successfully exited its first more serious crisis and without losing any members. The economy of the eurozone is increasing faster than expected and employment has fallen to the lowest level since 2009. An important prerequisite for a strong monetary union is a permanently fast economic growth," Ratas said.

"Still, countries' economies recover from crises differently. The debt level of many countries makes them vulnerable in case there should be a new recession. In some countries the unemployment level is still high. This feeds discontent and creates a good soil for populism and people who are against the European Union. All this also affects the stability of the single currency," he added.

Among other responsibilities, Dombrovskis is in charge of developing the European Economic and Monetary Union.