Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Legislation

The tug-of-war between the parliament and government over the procedures of how ESM-related decisions are made in Estonia received a solution on Tuesday when the Riigikogu finance committee made a proposal, after a five-hour marathon meeting, to increase the role of the parliament's full assembly in making the ESM decisions.

The ruling Reform Party MPs in the finance committee wanted the parliament's European Union affairs committee to have the rights to make a lot of the decisions regarding ESM, especially in case of emergency proceedings while the rest of the members wanted to amend the draft law so that the decision-making would go to the Riigikogu full assembly.

The committee's proposal granted the right to make fundamental loan and aid decisions to the full assembly which also means introducing a possibility to convene a session of it much faster than current laws allow. In case of confidential cases, the EU committee will be the responsible party.

ESM's volume is 700 billion euros and capital to be paid in it is 80 billion euros. Estonia's stake in the stability mechanism capital is in the transition period (12 years starting from joining the euro area) 0.186%; the capital to be paid in is 148.8 million euros. The upper limit of Estonia's guarantees in ESM is 1.302 billion euros.

The second reading of the draft law takes place on Thursday, at an emergency session of the parliament and if the second reading is completed, the third and final reading takes place the same day.