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A discussion took place in the regional capital Johvi at which experts and officials arrived at the conclusion that relocating state institutions to East-Viru county will help to prevent peripherization, promote integration and improve the interior security situation, spokespeople for the Ministry of Justice said.

Minister Urmas Reinsalu said his proposal to the government will be to have the program for the relocation of state institutions deal exclusively with East-Viru county and to take one thousand jobs to the northeastern county over the next 36 months.

The minister said he will also make a proposal to the government to start activities aimed at creating necessary work, living and social conditions for officials and their families in East-Viru county.

According to Professor Rainer Kattel, the effect is bigger when public sector jobs are relocated from the capital in a concentrated manner, bringing them together in one place, as this will increase the economic effect of the move, reduce the costs related to the relocation and the difficulties related to adjusting.

"The government is dealing with this problem in an extremely timely manner because there's an urgent need for this. The difficulty with East-Viru county lies in it that there already is one state in the information space here that plays by the rules of the Russian World and constantly havs the compatriot card among his hand," said Vladimir Juskin, director of the Baltic Center for Russian Studies.

The participants in the panel discussion were Reinsalu, Juskin, Garri Raagmaa, associate professor of regional planning at the University of Tartu, Karmo Tuur, expert at the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, Rainer Kattel, professor of Tallinn University of Technology, and Priit Kama, deputy secretary general of the Ministry of Justice for prisons. The discussion was moderated by Erik Gamzejev, editor in chief of the regional newspaper Pohjarannik.

The Ministry of Justice has relocated roughly 400 jobs to East-Viru county in the past seven years.