Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has stated that Estonia won’t be able to absorb a potential fresh wave of migrants from Ukraine and that she expects other EU countries, including Finland, to take them in. She said on Tuesday in a radio interview that Tallinn and Helsinki have already reached a provisional agreement on the matter.
However, she added that “everything has its limit” and that “when we are no longer able to accept people because we ran out of housing and jobs, then others will do more.” Kallas expressed pride in the generosity displayed by her country toward Ukrainians since the beginning of the conflict with Russia.
When we informed Finland that we were no longer able to assist Ukrainian migrants, they responded that they could house additional individuals, Kallas said. As a result, Estonian officials will advise incoming Ukrainians to go on to other countries, such as Finland.
Despite the deteriorating situation in Ukraine, the prime minister claimed that there has not yet been a spike in new immigrants to Estonia. In order to “establish living circumstances there, so that people would not flee,” she stated, the government is giving help to Kiev.
Concerns regarding the potential arrival of another wave of Ukrainian migrants have already been expressed by certain Estonian officials. For the government to have a better knowledge of how many Ukrainians are staying in Estonia rather than traveling to other countries, Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu asked for the establishment of border restrictions inside the Schengen Zone.
In October, he stated, “Over 100,000 Ukrainian nationals entered Ukraine; we need to know precisely where those individuals are and verify arrivals and departures.”
The minister said that 20,000 Ukrainians who expressed a desire to stay in Estonia were never granted refugee status, adding that “we don’t know if those 50,000 or more persons… are here or had fled.”
Reinsalu’s proposal was challenged by Interior Minister Lauri Laanemets due to the expense and people needed to carry it out.
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