Estonian finance minister: I dislike the tone of salary demands

Estonian Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi (Reform Party) said on ETV's "Esimene stuudio" that large interest groups such as teachers and rescuers have been accommodated in the state budget every year for a long time, calling this the most regrettable part of the process. He said he had planned to propose to the government abandoning privileges where one group's salary keeps rising faster than others'.

Asked whether the mistake lies in election promises of salary increases or in budgets that fail to deliver them, Ligi said it was a matter of wordplay — indexation and playing with percentages are rarely appropriate, and he doubted anyone had actually made such a promise. When the host noted such commitments sometimes appear in coalition agreements, Ligi replied that they are recorded there as a goal, not a promise to raise salaries.

Education minister's carelessness

Ligi said Education Minister Kristina Kallas (Eesti 200) had been careless four years ago when she said teachers' salaries would reach 120% of Estonia's average wage by 2027. Over a longer timeframe, he noted, teachers' salaries had climbed out of a deep hole to an acceptable level.

Teachers are demanding a minimum salary of €2,312, while rescuers face one of the largest wage gaps, currently being offered €1,654 — an amount the show's host said would be very hard to live on. Ligi said the tone used to demand money was, to put it mildly, unpleasant to him, and described the 24% rescuer salary increase in 2019 as unsustainable, since salaries did not grow further in subsequent years. He stressed the need to assess job complexity and workload and to keep considering structural reforms, warning against letting the structure keep expanding with more staff and ever-higher salaries.

Ligi also said parties that promise salary increases over the next four years during elections are, one way or another, lying, since no government actually indexes these salaries in its budget strategy.

As previously reported, trade unions have expressed outrage over the meager raise promised for next year to teachers, police, rescuers and cultural workers by Education Minister and Eesti 200 chair Kristina Kallas. The minimum teacher salary is set to rise 3% to €2,030 gross. Cultural workers, rescuers and law enforcement would see a similar increase, but applied to the wage fund rather than a minimum salary, with employers deciding individual raises; the Rescuers' Union estimated this would amount to about €48 gross per person if divided equally.