The Minister of Culture Indrek Saar sent a letter to partners and stakeholder organisations today, on September 9, which notifies of the plan to initiate a discussion over the additions to the implementation plan of the sectoral development plan Integrating Estonia 2020 for 2016-2020. The further aim is to find opportunities for reducing the amount of persons of undetermined citizenship in Estonia.
The Minister of Culture Indrek Saar explained that being a citizen is in the interest of the state as it increases everyone’s connection to the state. „From the restoration of independence the proportion of Estonian citizens in the population has continuously increased but in the last decade the tempo of naturalisation has decelerated, staying at around one and a half thousand people per year. Therefore the opportunities for receiving Estonian citizenship for persons of undetermined citizenship need significantly greater attention,“ said Saar. Estonia is in second place in the European Union after Latvia in the number of stateless persons.
The integration plan’s implementation plan prepared for 2016-2020 by the Ministry of Culture confirms various policies, the timeline of implementing them, joint and key responsible parties and sources of resources. The Ministry of the Interior is responsible for the rest of the activities and citizenship policy more broadly.
Minister Saar specified, that within the framework of implementing the development plan of Integrating Estonia it is important to deal with the reasons why Estonian citizenship is not applied for. „We want to reach specific groups of society, who would have an opportunity to receive Estonian citizenship, but could take more specific steps for it. The preparation courses of the constitution and citizenship exam, language tuition, but definitely also a more efficient dissemination of information and introducing national identity are on the agenda,“ Saar listed.
According to the Minister Estonia is ready for discussions over citizenship policy as this is evidenced by the results of the 2015 Estonian Integration Monitoring.
The round table on rationalising various activities and more broadly on challenges related to naturalisation will come together in October, this is preceded by various meetings with organisations of the civic society.
More information:
Piret Hartman
Adviser to the Minister of Culture
Telephone 628 3338
[email protected]