Estonia, Law and Regulations, Legislation

The aim of the bill is to make Estonian state defence modern and guarantee leadership of the state with clear command lines. The current state defence basics are considered very outdated and compared to the pre-WWII era. According to the current Estonian laws, the president is the highest head of Estonian state defence. In case of an aggression, he has to make a proposal to the parliament to declare war situation, mobilisation and demobilisation. During peace time, the head of the Defence Forces is the highest leader of the state defence.

Estonian prime minister Taavi Rõivas said, when speaking about the bill, that Russia's activities in 2008 against Georgia an now against Ukraine shows that fast reaction is important. Rõivas said that currently valid laws enable to carry out mobilisation but the legal situation needs supplementing.

Estonian defence minister Sven Mikser said that the new draft law is the law of making sure Estonia stays together. The current state defence system dates back to the beginning of 1990s and was created at the time when Estonia was not yet a NATO member.

The aim of the new law is to guarantee leadership of the state with clear command lines in both peace and war time. During war time, the state would be headed by the government, that is advised by security committee; the security committee is headed by the prime minister, meaning that the role of the prime minister considerably increases.

Previous defence minister Urmas Reinsalu, on whose initiative the new state defence law is based, said that the new law should reduce bureaucracy in a crisis or war situation - the peacetime and war time state defence systems should be organised in a similar way to make the transition as fast and smooth as possible without unnecessary bureaucracy. Thus the main change is to change the existing peacetime and war time state defence laws, merging them.