**Hitting the right balance between sanctions and our own economies through policy is understandably one of the biggest challenges for democracies in Europe and elsewhere at the time of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. However, were this war to be lost, it would not be lost by Ukraine but us, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said in a speech delivered at the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung in Berlin.**
I am honored to be here today. I was in Berlin for the first time in 1988 as an 11-year-old. Perestroika had begun and for me it was a miracle that we could go to East Germany, a foreign country. My father took me along with my brother to as close to the Brandenburg Gate as possible to have a look at the Wall. I vividly recall him saying: “Kids, breathe in deeply – that’s the air of freedom coming from the other side.”
At the time, I didn’t really understand what he meant. It is said that you only appreciate freedom when it’s taken from you. But as a child born under Soviet occupation, I had never experienced freedom.
Soon enough, a wind of change began to blow, tearing down the Wall in Berlin as well as elsewhere in Europe. And I was able to breathe this air of freedom also at home.
Thirty years ago, when Estonia managed to get out of the totalitarian prison in 1991, I was a teenager. What was a turn, die Wende, for you was a revolution for us.
After regaining independence and freedom, Estonia had a difficult task: to build a free and open society, a parliamentary democracy. This was not an easy task – despite the relief that people were finally free.
Re-establishing a democratic relationship between the citizen and the state is not something you do overnight and it is nothing you can learn from books.
Our way to freedom was accompanied and supported by many friends from the free world. Here Germany had a special role and support. Allow me to draw some connections in this regard.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we first had to rapidly establish a new social contract and anchor this agreement in our constitution. While drafting our Constitution in 1992, Roman Herzog, President of the Federal Constitutional Court at that time, was an expert drafting the chapter on fundamental freedoms, rights and duties – in fact, the proportion of this chapter speaks for itself as it amounts to more than a quarter of the whole text.
The German legal system formed the foundation while re-establishing central parts of our private, criminal and general administrative law. This also means that a whole generation of Estonian lawyers, myself included, studied German legal practice. Moreover, it is German Rechtstheorie that forms the basis of an introductory class of first-year law students in Estonia.
Baltics have been talking about it since Russian invasion of Georgia.
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**Hitting the right balance between sanctions and our own economies through policy is understandably one of the biggest challenges for democracies in Europe and elsewhere at the time of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. However, were this war to be lost, it would not be lost by Ukraine but us, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said in a speech delivered at the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung in Berlin.**
I am honored to be here today. I was in Berlin for the first time in 1988 as an 11-year-old. Perestroika had begun and for me it was a miracle that we could go to East Germany, a foreign country. My father took me along with my brother to as close to the Brandenburg Gate as possible to have a look at the Wall. I vividly recall him saying: “Kids, breathe in deeply – that’s the air of freedom coming from the other side.”
At the time, I didn’t really understand what he meant. It is said that you only appreciate freedom when it’s taken from you. But as a child born under Soviet occupation, I had never experienced freedom.
Soon enough, a wind of change began to blow, tearing down the Wall in Berlin as well as elsewhere in Europe. And I was able to breathe this air of freedom also at home.
Thirty years ago, when Estonia managed to get out of the totalitarian prison in 1991, I was a teenager. What was a turn, die Wende, for you was a revolution for us.
After regaining independence and freedom, Estonia had a difficult task: to build a free and open society, a parliamentary democracy. This was not an easy task – despite the relief that people were finally free.
Re-establishing a democratic relationship between the citizen and the state is not something you do overnight and it is nothing you can learn from books.
Our way to freedom was accompanied and supported by many friends from the free world. Here Germany had a special role and support. Allow me to draw some connections in this regard.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we first had to rapidly establish a new social contract and anchor this agreement in our constitution. While drafting our Constitution in 1992, Roman Herzog, President of the Federal Constitutional Court at that time, was an expert drafting the chapter on fundamental freedoms, rights and duties – in fact, the proportion of this chapter speaks for itself as it amounts to more than a quarter of the whole text.
The German legal system formed the foundation while re-establishing central parts of our private, criminal and general administrative law. This also means that a whole generation of Estonian lawyers, myself included, studied German legal practice. Moreover, it is German Rechtstheorie that forms the basis of an introductory class of first-year law students in Estonia.
Baltics have been talking about it since Russian invasion of Georgia.