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Kaja Kallas
Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas 2023.jpg
Kallas in 2023
19th Prime Minister of Estonia
Assumed office
26 January 2021
President
Preceded by Jüri Ratas
Leader of the Reform Party
Assumed office
14 April 2018
Preceded by Hanno Pevkur
Member of the Riigikogu
In office
3 March 2019 – 26 January 2021
Constituency HarjuRapla
In office
6 March 2011 – 1 July 2014
Constituency Harju–Rapla
Member of the European Parliament
for Estonia
In office
1 July 2014 – 5 September 2018
Succeeded by Igor Gräzin
Personal details
Born (1977-06-18) 18 June 1977 (age 46)
Tallinn, Estonia
Political party Reform
Spouses
Roomet Leiger
(m. 2002; div. 2006)
Arvo Hallik
(m. 2018)
Children 1
Parent
Education

Kaja Kallas ( born 18 June 1977) is an Estonian politician and the current prime minister of Estonia since 2021, the first woman to serve in the role. The leader of the Reform Party since 2018, she was a member of parliament (Riigikogu) in 2011–2014, and 2019–2021. Kallas was a member of the European Parliament in 2014–2018, representing the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Before her election to Riigikogu, she was a lawyer specialising in European competition law.

Ancestry, early life and education

Kaja Kallas was born in Tallinn on 18 June 1977. Her father, Siim Kallas, served as prime minister of Estonia from 2002–2003, and as a European Commissioner from 2004–2014.

Kallas's paternal great-grandfather lawyer Eduard Alver (1886–1939) was the commander of the Estonian Defence League during the Estonian War of Independence who also served as the head of the Estonian Police and the Estonian Internal Security Service.

During the Soviet June deportation of 1941 Kallas' mother Kirsti, six months old at the time, was deported to Siberia with her mother and grandmother. They were allowed to return to Estonia ten years later.

Apart from Estonian, Kallas patrilineally also has distant Latvian and Baltic German ancestry, as discovered by investigative journalists researching her father's ancestry shortly after his premiership.

Kallas graduated from the University of Tartu in 1999 with a bachelor's degree in law. She lived in France and Finland briefly while training in European law. From 2007, she attended the Estonian Business School, earning an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) in 2010.

Professional career

Kallas became a member of the Estonian Bar Association in 1999, and an attorney-at-law in 2002. She became a partner in law firm Luiga Mody Hääl Borenius and Tark & Co, and worked as an executive coach in the Estonian Business School. She is also a member of the European Antitrust Alliance. In 2011, she was placed on inactive status as a member of the Estonian Bar Association. In November 2018, Kallas published her memoir MEP: 4 aastat Euroopa Parlamendis (MEP: Four Years in the European Parliament), in which she described her life and work in Brussels from 2014 to 2018.

Political career

Member of the Estonian Parliament (2011–2014)

In 2010, Kallas joined the Estonian Reform Party. In the 2011 parliamentary elections she won a seat in the Riigikogu (for the Harju County and Rapla County constituency) receiving 7,157 votes. She was a member of the 12th Parliament of Estonia and chaired the Economic Affairs Committee from 2011 to 2014.

Member of the European Parliament (2014–2018)

In the 2014 European Parliament election in Estonia, Kallas received 21,498 votes. In the European Parliament, Kallas served on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and was a substitute for the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. She was a vice-chair of the Delegation to the EU–Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee as well as a member of the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly and Delegation for relations with the United States. In addition to her committee assignments, Kallas was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) Intergroup on the Digital Agenda, and was also a vice-chair of the Youth Intergroup.

During her period in Parliament, Kallas worked on the Digital Single Market strategy, energy, and consumer policies, and relations with Ukraine. In particular, she defended the rights of small and medium-sized enterprises, maintaining that borders in the digital world hinder the emergence of innovative companies. She is a proponent of innovation and frequently emphasises that regulations cannot and must not hinder the technological revolution.

Kallas served as rapporteur for six reports: opinion on the ePrivacy Regulation, civil law rules on robotics, on the Annual report on EU Competition Policy, and on Delivering a New Deal for Energy Consumers, legislation on Custom infringements and sanctions, and the own-initiative report on the Digital Single Market. During her time in Parliament, she was also nominated as a European Young Leader (EYL40). At the end of her term, she was cited by Politico as one of the 40 most influential MEPs, and one of the most powerful women in Brussels, who was highlighted for her understanding of technological issues.

Return to national politics (2017–2020)

On 13 December 2017, the Reform Party leader Hanno Pevkur announced that he would no longer run for the party leadership in January 2018, and suggested that Kallas should run instead. After considering the offer, Kallas announced on 15 December 2017 that she would accept the invitation to run in the leadership election. Kallas won the leadership election held on 14 April 2018 and became the first female leader of a major political party in Estonia.

In the 2019 Estonian parliamentary election on 3 March, the Reform Party led by Kallas received about 29% of the vote, with the ruling Estonian Centre Party taking 23%. The Centre Party managed to form Jüri Ratas' second cabinet with the conservative Isamaa party and the far-right EKRE, leaving the Reform Party out of power. On 14 November 2020, Kallas was re-elected as leader of the Reform Party at a Reform Party Assembly.

Prime Minister of Estonia (2021–present)

Prime Minister Sanna Marin meets the Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas in Helsinki 4.10.2021 (51550103499)
Kallas met with then Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin in Helsinki, 2021.

On 25 January 2021, after the resignation of Jüri Ratas as prime minister following a scandal, Kallas's first cabinet, a Reform-led coalition government with the Centre Party, was formed. In doing so, she became the first female prime minister in Estonia's history.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy Meets With Estonian Prime Minister Kallas (2021)
Kallas met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, 2021.

During the latter half of 2021, the 2021–2023 global energy crisis disrupted the Estonian economy; businesses were forced to temporarily shut down, while the public requested government aid to pay for the high electricity and heating prices. Kallas initially resisted calls for government aid, suggesting that the government should search for long-term solutions rather than handing out government benefits, and that a free market should not require consistent government intervention to keep people afloat. The energy crisis nearly caused the collapse of the coalition government. In January 2022, Kallas announced a 245 million euro plan to reduce the cost of energy from September 2021 to March 2022. The energy crisis impacted her popularity in Estonia.

Secretary Blinken Meets With Estonian Prime Minister Kallas (51930410266)
Kallas met with U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken in Tallinn, 2022.

After her resignation on 14 July 2022, Kallas' second cabinet was sworn in on 18 July. The new government was a three-party coalition by the Reform Party, Social Democratic Party, and Isamaa. Her previous government had lost its parliamentary majority after the Centre Party left the coalition. In February 2023, Kallas was mentioned as a possible candidate to replace NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg following his expected retirement that same year.

In March 2023, Kallas led the Reform Party to a decisive victory in the 2023 parliamentary election, increasing the party's seat count in the Riigikogu by three seats. Following the election result, Kallas negotiated a coalition government with Estonia 200 and the Social Democratic Party, and her third cabinet was sworn in on 17 April. In June 2023, the government passed a bill legalising same-sex marriage and adoption in Estonia. The bill will come into effect on 1 January 2024, making Estonia the first Baltic state and country formerly occupied by the Soviet Union to legalise same-sex marriage and adoption.

НАТО Самит 2023, Вилнус - Литванија (11-12.07.2023) - 53038267876
Kallas met with Macedonian Prime Minister Dimitar Kovačevski in Vilnius, 2023.

She is frequently named as a potential candidate to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as Secretary General of NATO, a role she has expressed interest in.

Personal life

In 2002–2006, Kallas was married to Roomet Leiger. She lived together with former Estonian politician and businessman Taavi Veskimägi (the country's minister of finance in 2003–2005). Kallas and Veskimägi have one son; they separated in 2014. In 2018, she married Arvo Hallik, a banker and investor. Hallik has two children from a previous relationship.

Apart from her native Estonian, Kallas is fluent in English, Russian and French.

Awards and honours

  • European Prize for Political Culture by Hans Ringier Foundation (2022)
  • ROU Order of the Star of Romania 1999 GCross BAR.svg Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Romania (2021)
  • Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise 1st 2nd and 3rd Class of Ukraine.png Member 2nd Class of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise (Ukraine, 24 April 2023)

Other activities

Since 2020, Kallas has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Friends of Europe. Additionally, she is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, an advisory board member of the Women Economic Forum, and a patron of the Model European Union Tallinn. She is also a mentor of the European Liberal Youth, a member of the European Young Leaders, a MEP ambassor of Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, a member of the MEP Library Lovers Group, a political member of the European Internet Forum, a member of the extended board of the European Forum for Renewable Energy Sources, a member of the Global Young Leaders, a member of the Women Political Leaders, and a MEP ambassador of the European Entrepreneurship Education Network.

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Kaja Kallas para niños

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