Words matter. These are the best Kersti Kaljulaid Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Digital society is born when your people refuse to use paper. And in our country, we know that our people refuse to use paper. If you arrive at such a point in your development, you have to make your digital state always secure.
Estonia is proud of the fact that the country today has a flourishing and happy Jewish life.
As the president of Estonia, I represent the only truly digital society which actually has a state; almost all our citizens’ interactions with the government, including voting, can be done securely online, and our ‘e-residents’ can incorporate and run their businesses in Estonia without ever having to set foot here.
Small nations have no time for small goals – they have to think big in order to become contributors.
Most new jobs created by global digital opportunities make people more independent. Fewer people will work for one company at a time or in the same country all the time. More will work remotely across borders.
The E.U. is very popular in Estonia, and for very good reasons – not because Estonia has received considerable support from the E.U., but because Europe supports the values which keep small states safe in this world.
Estonia maintains a two-language school system. I don’t know many countries in the world that provide a system like ours. We are making sure that our Russian-speaking minority feels comfortable and involved in this country.
My mother was a doctor, and I grew up with her in a little apartment belonging to my grandmother, because the Soviet Union never saw fit to let our family have its own apartment.
If we look decades ago, we know that NATO allies contributed a lot of equipment close to the border of the Soviet Union.
It is interesting that cyberwarfare is developing into something conventional and attacking objects, infrastructure, and critical services.
The E.U. is a common platform where we come together and agree to do certain things. But the E.U. is never going to take over the responsibility which governments have for prosperity and security of their people.
Every state aspiring to be part of the free world, able to decide its own destiny, deserves its chance. They may, in a not too distant future, contribute to all of us in ways we cannot imagine today.
Globally, we need to make sure that markets are open… If we see that there are restrictions on free trade, then simple economic logic will demonstrate that this is not beneficial.
Our main concern will always be security.
The problem is if Russia is organising exercises – and not being transparent about what exactly these exercises are about – it creates suspicions as to their objectives.
Our people are willing to work with the government on new technologies. Now, it’s a habit; every Estonian looks at it as part of our national identity. We understand that this allows us to provide better services to our people than our money would allow.
Industrial jobs are disappearing, and they will continue to disappear owing to productivity gains from automation. Thus, social models that were created to fit industrial and early service economies will no longer be viable. As the industrial workforce shrinks, the social model founded on it will go, too.
In Estonia, our greatest national treasure is our egalitarian educational system.
There are high hopes of France and what they’re trying to achieve there by liberalising the labour market and other reforms. You lose some, you gain some.
Not everything is so bad… Whichever way you look at it, we feel that we can face the future when the liberal, democracy-based world sticks together. We have great trust that it will.
We are past the stage in our relations that you come to Washington with an empty goody bag and then you go back with a bag filled with stuff.
NATO’s deterrence has always been adequate, and I’m not worried about the physical security of my country. Not at all.
Sometimes I hear, particularly from Russia, that we simply hate Russia and don’t like to co-operate, that we are hysterical about the risks. But this is totally untrue. We would greatly benefit economically if our neighbour was a democratic, developing country.
I am very worried about politicians who know that their countries are greatly benefiting financially and at the same time are saying that the European Union is not good for us. The message has to be coherent.
We have every reason to put our trust in NATO and in transatlantic cooperation.
