ERR — broadcast
20260806 010000 UTC
250 transcript segments
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking
Data courtesy of The GDELT Project (https://www.gdeltproject.org/), from the Internet Archive TV News Archive.
Machine transcription. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a verbatim quotation record.

[00:16:42] "In the case of energy-intensive companies, energy price is also very
[00:16:45] important, explain to me
[00:16:48] what you understand by economic development
[00:16:52] or or or even the priority development of a focus
[00:16:56] area. Exactly, I think you very well highlighted
[00:16:59] those same points, that financial support may not even mean anything if
[00:17:03] one company receives for example 200,000 euros.
[00:17:07] support, but regulation does not allow it to operate. Let's give a very
[00:17:11] specific example that we have tried for a long time to change in Estonia,
[00:17:14] which is the Medicines Act, because Estonia could be the first country in the world that can
[00:17:18] offer so-called mobile pharmacies, i.e.
[00:17:21] self-service pharmacies, where you can get your prescription medicine 24/7
[00:17:25] with an ID card. Today's legislation does not allow
[00:17:29] this. We have a number of countries in the world, including Canada, who have said that if
[00:17:32] Estonia can bring this success story
[00:17:36] company here, then they would immediately want
[00:17:39] to start using such a service. So, no matter how much we direct
[00:17:43] money into this field of medicine
[00:17:46] cabinets, self-service pharmacies, if today's regulation does not allow it, then they cannot be
[00:17:49] successful. That's why regulation is truly important. Similarly, the
[00:17:52] tax system. In Estonia today, companies still have 0%
[00:17:56] income tax if you reinvest your profits. This
[00:17:59] has been a very important part of why so much entrepreneurship has come to Estonia, why we have
[00:18:02] e-residency today, which brings us directly and indirectly a lot of
[00:18:06] tax money, so... "It's truly not only financial support that we can give to companies.
[00:18:10] Let's take the example of France again, why today they have managed
[00:18:13] to attract many companies' headquarters and research and development centers
[00:18:16] from other European countries. This is due to a charismatic
[00:18:19] president named Macron, who organizes
[00:18:22] a large event once a year in Versailles, pats companies on the back,
[00:18:26] looks them deep in the eyes and says, 'Come here, we will give you everything you
[00:18:30] want.' So truly, supporting companies is not only
[00:18:33] financial, it involves so many other things, like this example of medicine and
[00:18:36] self-service pharmacies." We are currently working in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, we have a program called
[00:18:40] Accelerate Estonia, which looks at what are the new
[00:18:43] business models that face regulatory obstacles,
[00:18:46] and then we push for such
[00:18:50] business models to be able to operate, so that we can change the so-called Medicines Act
[00:18:53] so that this company can enter the Estonian market. Okay, I'll try to introduce
[00:18:57] a bit of intrigue and and another
[00:19:00] field, I'll bring a specific field
[00:19:03] that has caused a lot of ideological debates recently.
[00:19:06] debates, for example, should the green economy be a
[00:19:09] focus area in Estonian economic development
[00:19:13] in the future or not, considering
[00:19:17] the political changes that
[00:19:20] have already accompanied, for example, the European Parliament elections, which
[00:19:24] we saw in the USA accompanied the presidential elections, and we don't
[00:19:27] know what the result of the Estonian March elections will be in
[00:19:30] 2027. For example, can the green economy
[00:19:34] be and must be a focus area? Or not,
[00:19:38] or or or what kind of decision regarding the green economy
[00:19:41] might emerge during the analysis? Hmm, I
[00:19:45] think with the last sentence you answered the question, it will become clear during the analysis, but intuitively
[00:19:49] I would say that the green economy as a word or a field is too
[00:19:52] broad to be a single focus area. It's similar to
[00:19:55] digital solutions in every field. The green economy is also already
[00:19:59] a goal, not a sector. Here we can talk about clean electricity,
[00:20:02] industrial efficiency, biochemistry, right,
[00:20:05] electrification more broadly.
[00:20:08] "The fact is that our planet is overheating. No
[00:20:12] president who decides to leave the Paris Climate Agreement multiple times, right,
[00:20:15] will change that. We have to deal with
[00:20:19] these issues, but we also have to deal with
[00:20:22] industrial efficiency, not only for the sake of the economy,
[00:20:26] but because then our prices are more favorable, we consume less
[00:20:28] electricity. So the green economy as such, I wouldn't say it's a focus area, because it's
[00:20:32] as broad as today's focus areas.
[00:20:36] The green economy, in addition to subsidies, often relies on
[00:20:39] state regulations. On the one hand, we see that
[00:20:43] setting a high regulatory price for CO2, on the one hand,
[00:20:47] strangles oil shale energy and...
[00:20:50] and regulation has given an advantage to wind, solar and
[00:20:53] battery investments. Or I can also give another example, as we discussed
[00:20:57] this on Monday's Uudis Plus show. At public
[00:21:00] events, the use of disposable dishes is legally
[00:21:03] prohibited, and this has led to the emergence of
[00:21:06] companies offering cup and plate recycling. But
[00:21:10] we see these recycling companies struggling at a loss
[00:21:14] and and and they find that, well, the current regulation is too
[00:21:18] little and and maybe.
[00:21:20] then it would offer them more market if the state would, for example, also
[00:21:24] ban disposable dishes in restaurants, cinemas,
[00:21:27] nightclubs, also for food
[00:21:29] takeaways, courier services, a
[00:21:33] requirement to offer reusable dishes would arise, and
[00:21:36] I'm not asking this for no reason, the Ministry of Climate is currently also
[00:21:39] for consultation or discussion ee such
[00:21:42] an idea or a draft has been sent
[00:21:45] out. What is your position from the Ministry of Economic Affairs
[00:21:49] as a deputy chancellor, should? should
[00:21:53] green economy companies, a specific example, then the goal of
[00:21:56] reducing plastic should provide regulatory
[00:21:59] support by banning even more disposable
[00:22:02] plastic dishes or not? Since you asked for my personal
[00:22:05] opinion, then in the Ministry of Economic Affairs
[00:22:08] we are still formulating a position on packaging or the Packaging Act, but I personally think
[00:22:12] that with regulation we should not artificially support any
[00:22:15] company. Regulation should be empowering. We can remove regulation
[00:22:19] so that... a company does better, and similarly, actually, this whole
[00:22:23] Packaging Act and and and cup use and reusability, this is based on
[00:22:26] a European Union directive, if I'm not mistaken, which
[00:22:30] talks about reusable dishes,
[00:22:32] and I don't believe that in Estonia we should go further than European Union
[00:22:36] legislation. This has always been a criticism from businesses towards
[00:22:39] Estonia, please let's not do it faster, let's not go further than the basic European
[00:22:43] Union demand. Therefore,
[00:22:47] to help one company, we definitely should not make
[00:22:50] tradition stricter for others. I will give you a personal example, well, actually I'm
[00:22:54] not talking about one company, I'm talking about a sector, there are several sectors,
[00:22:57] but even within the sector, there are definitely other solutions than that
[00:23:01] legislation must ban others so that we can operate, right? I
[00:23:05] visited Haapsalu Taste Street a couple of weeks ago, and there,
[00:23:08] a coffee cup seemed very cheap, 2.50, then it turned out that for the deposit
[00:23:12] you had to pay two more euros, one person in front of me went to buy
[00:23:16] that coffee, looked at 2.50, then was told, 'Ah, two euros will be added, from which you can get
[00:23:20] back only one euro,' and eventually the person said, 'I'm not buying that
[00:23:22] coffee cup.' So this is also entrepreneurship, that someone sells that coffee, and
[00:23:26] eventually if then the packaging business becomes a limitation
[00:23:29] for them in terms of sales, then we are actually hindering another type of business.
[00:23:33] Of course, I acknowledge this or it's a fact that our planet is overheating,
[00:23:37] we must deal with the green economy, as I said, but we don't have to promote
[00:23:40] one sector through increasingly restrictive regulations. I will now broaden
[00:23:44] the topic again. How large is the financial volume that
[00:23:48] currently annually goes from Estonian and European Union
[00:23:51] taxpayers' funds to Estonian
[00:23:54] entrepreneurship as support, whether
[00:23:57] as support for research and development activities or
[00:23:59] from other lines? Hmm.
[00:24:02] Well, I can talk about the numbers from the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Our
[00:24:06] main partner in supporting businesses is the Enterprise and Innovation
[00:24:09] Foundation (Eis). This
[00:24:12] year, their budget is about 236
[00:24:16] million euros, of which approximately 80, about
[00:24:19] 82 million euros, are state budget
[00:24:21] funds, and then 150 million euros plus are
[00:24:25] external supports. There is the Just Transition Fund, the European
[00:24:28] Recovery Plan funding, Norwegian
[00:24:31] grants,
[00:24:33] structural funds, and in addition, research and development
[00:24:37] money, which is 1% of Estonia's GDP, which is
[00:24:41] an inter-party principled agreement that every
[00:24:44] year 1% of GDP will be directed to
[00:24:47] research and development, so in short, this sum
[00:24:51] is several hundred million euros, but it is not only
[00:24:54] direct support, it is divided into many different
[00:24:57] support schemes, whether we are talking about guarantees,
[00:25:01] loans, we have now created a new innovation loan specifically for such
[00:25:04] companies that might not get a loan directly from a bank, because their product is
[00:25:07] still under development, but it could be a higher potential, higher productivity
[00:25:11] field or company,
[00:25:14] so let's say that we are not paying out the then
[00:25:18] 236 million euros equally to
[00:25:21] companies as money in hand. As of today, the
[00:25:24] focus has shifted and the resources have been
[00:25:28] used for ineffective activities. This was a quote
[00:25:32] from the 2026 economic
[00:25:35] growth plan compiled by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, which then justified the reform
[00:25:38] of the EISA structure and service portfolio.
[00:25:42] How do you evaluate the changes that have been made in EISA or
[00:25:45] EIS, as the official name is, under the leadership of Ursel Velve?
[00:25:49] Hmm, thank you. First of all, I think
[00:25:52] it's a bit too early to say, because this first year has actually been spent on
[00:25:55] making EIS itself more efficient. There have been many
[00:25:58] team reorganizations, a very large number of people
[00:26:02] have been made redundant. And
[00:26:06] certainly we also have some so-called backlog
[00:26:09] budget challenges in the sense that we still have
[00:26:12] European Union funding that we need to distribute until
[00:26:16] the end of this period, so it's a bit early to evaluate, but
[00:26:20] I'm already very happy that we are narrowing down the services and
[00:26:24] products that we offer at EIS, because precisely thanks to the Just Transition Fund, the Recovery Plan
[00:26:27] funding, there were various crises in Europe, the European Union directed more and
[00:26:31] more money, so we opened more and more new
[00:26:34] supports. We saw that interest in them might not be so
[00:26:38] great, and that's why the criticism was justified to some extent, that in some cases
[00:26:41] distributing the money might have been more expensive than the money that was distributed.
[00:26:45] So I'm waiting, I think that in the near future we will definitely see the result, today
[00:26:48] I cannot tell you a number for that, but we are moving in the right direction. If the state now
[00:26:52] defines these focus areas, then how large a
[00:26:55] part of the current support volume
[00:26:58] should go elsewhere, that currently goes to
[00:27:05] companies a, b, and c, and in the future should go to e and and
[00:27:09] so on, so how big a change should the definition of these
[00:27:12] focus areas bring in financial terms? In financial
[00:27:15] terms, I think the total amount will remain
[00:27:19] the same, right? We have the research and development agreement of 1%, we have a new European
[00:27:22] Union within that sum, I cannot tell you today, because it does not
[00:27:26] mean that we will stop supporting all companies. Are we
[00:27:29] making, yes, are we making a micro-change right now, discussing
[00:27:32] for several years and the result is that a few million will be redirected, or are we talking about
[00:27:36] tens or or a hundred and more millions being redirected? I will come
[00:27:39] back to what we talked about at the beginning, that supporting companies,
[00:27:42] even in the case of focus areas, is not only financial, it is not only the direct support
[00:27:46] that we give them, it is our entire regulatory environment,
[00:27:49] for example. So whether I tell you today that it is
[00:27:52] 50% of that, I would be lying to you anyway, because
[00:27:56] there is no correct answer yet, but I will say that we are already doing this stronger focusing today, if we
[00:28:00] look at the applied research program, which supports research-intensive companies in launching new
[00:28:04] products and services, we already did this focusing when the
[00:28:07] defense industry came, we created a new defense industry fund and
[00:28:10] directed a part of the existing applied research program
[00:28:14] funds already to the defense industry.
[00:28:16] So I honestly cannot tell you that percentage and number today. One claim that
[00:28:20] circulates among entrepreneurs and that I, as a journalist, have also been told, is that
[00:28:24] companies that have received support from AIC, their
[00:28:27] productivity is lower than the Estonian average. Is this claim
[00:28:30] true? I think it is true in that sense, entrepreneurs
[00:28:34] come to ask for support when they need it, and a very large part
[00:28:37] of EIS support is precisely to make companies more efficient,
[00:28:40] to increase productivity, so I believe that in that sense it is true,
[00:28:44] but it is not the case that a company receives support from EIS and then becomes less
[00:28:48] productive, that is definitely a false claim. But should it be the case in the future
[00:28:51] that if we look at a company that has received EIS support, that for example after five
[00:28:55] years, it is more productive compared to companies that have not received
[00:28:59] support? That is also the case today, generally speaking, that
[00:29:02] I cannot say that Estonia's largest exporting companies, the largest
[00:29:05] technology companies, we talked about Wise and
[00:29:08] Skype before, they don't come to ask for support either, maybe the support they
[00:29:12] need is export, it is diplomatic support, so in that sense we cannot really
[00:29:16] say directly that these companies that came through EIS, they are
[00:29:19] more productive than those who did not come, because others will still come to ask for it, those who
[00:29:23] need it, but I can tell you that if a company comes to ask for support for
[00:29:27] productivity, for example, then if after five years it is
[00:29:30] more productive than it was before, here... Bigbank economist Raul
[00:29:33] Leamets published an opinion piece in Postimees last week, where he also found
[00:29:37] that the state should not support company innovation
[00:29:40] with taxpayer money at all, that should be the task
[00:29:44] of the companies themselves, and Leamets also found that Estonia's very high
[00:29:48] contribution of taxpayer money to research and development
[00:29:51] costs has not led to higher economic growth in Estonia
[00:29:54] compared to neighboring countries that have invested
[00:29:58] less. How do you respond to such argumentation?
[00:30:01] Yes. "In an ideal world, the state really shouldn't support entrepreneurs,
[00:30:05] entrepreneurs can manage themselves, but then the state shouldn't restrict them either, for example through
[00:30:08] regulations. Simply today, the current economic situation in the world
[00:30:12] is such that we have state aid, right? It's a race
[00:30:15] to win, so Europeans have accused Americans of supporting their
[00:30:18] companies too much, but actually, in terms of total volume, the European
[00:30:22] Union and the USA support their companies to the same extent, it's just that in the European Union
[00:30:26] that support is 40% from Germany and Italy, between the two countries, if
[00:30:30] Germany supports its companies, Italy supports..." France supports, small countries are
[00:30:34] already in a worse situation, if Estonia, Latvia,
[00:30:37] Lithuania also don't support their companies, then they will be in an even worse situation, so inevitably we
[00:30:41] have to support, but I'm not saying it's direct support, we give money, we create new
[00:30:45] instruments, it's an innovation loan, uh, we support banks to
[00:30:49] amplify the provision of guarantees to banks for entrepreneurs,
[00:30:52] perhaps to those they wouldn't otherwise give them to. Uh, I can't
[00:30:56] agree at all that if we didn't have that 1% GDP agreement or
[00:30:59] didn't develop research...