She is a determined opponent of the Kremlin and a convinced European. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was chosen by the EU heads of state and government, meeting at a summit on Thursday, to be the voice of European Union (EU) diplomacy, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine. She will succeed the Spaniard Josep Borrell.
The one who provided resolute support to Ukraine from the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, immediately stressed that “the war in Europe” and “the growing instability in our neighborhood and in the world” were the main challenges of European foreign policy.
The daughter of former Estonian Prime Minister and European Commissioner Siim Kallas, the lawyer by profession was born when Estonia was still part of the Soviet Union. Aged 47, she was first elected as an MEP in 2011 for the Reform Party, a liberal party founded by her father, before winning a seat in the European Parliament, appearing on several lists of the most influential MEPs.
She returned to the national political scene in 2018, taking the helm of the Reform Party and becoming Estonia’s first female head of government in 2021.
An interest in the head of NATO
The Baltic country, which has only 1.3 million inhabitants, has become, proportionally, one of the most generous donors to Ukraine, its aid exceeding 1% of its GDP. “If such aggression pays off in Ukraine, it could encourage the same elsewhere. We must completely discredit the tool of aggression,” declared the leader during an interview with AFP in December 2023.
Kaja Kallas, who speaks English, Russian and French fluently in addition to her native Estonian, had openly expressed her interest in replacing Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg at the head of NATO. Her combative attitude towards Russian President Vladimir Putin earned her the support of several EU countries, including Poland, but may have hampered her ambitions for a moment, as she herself admitted.
“The concern (for the Baltic states) is that next year we will be 20 years members of these organisations, the EU and NATO, but we are not considered equal candidates for high-level positions,” she lamented in late 2023. “And if I hear this argument that I am a provocation for Russia, then I say that we are giving too much power to Russia to dictate our decisions,” she added.
Wanted by Russia
From this point of view, the woman nicknamed “the Iron Lady” in Estonia has never feared provoking Moscow. In a symbolic act of breaking with its past, the Estonian government removed Soviet-era war monuments from public spaces, a process that accelerated after the invasion of Ukraine.
VideoLatvia and Estonia destroy Soviet-era monuments
“When we regained our independence, we had many other worries. When the war started, it reopened, in fact, all the wounds,” said Kaja Kallas. This firmness led to her being placed by Moscow last February on its wanted list, officially for “destruction of monuments to Soviet soldiers”.
Despite her popularity, she faced a crisis of confidence in 2023 after local media reported that a company partly owned by her husband continued to operate in Russia. Rejecting calls to resign, Kallas was re-elected as leader of the Reform Party, her international image untarnished by the scandal.
