When Putin’s authorities dismissed a warrant for her arrest in February, Estonian PM Kaja Kallas declared to the world with a defiant smile on her face that she wasn’t afraid of the bear. Her words ’Russia will not intimidate me’ quickly turned her into the EU’s most cited politician.
Apart from being apparently unafraid of dirty little political tricks like blackmail, what else has contributed to her rise to one of EU’s top jobs?
An Estonian family with history
It’s a less known fact that Kaja Kallas is the great-granddaughter of the first Estonian chief of police as the newly independent country emerged from the Russian Empire after the First World War. Her mother was six months old when her family was forcibly relocated to Siberia in 1949.
However, this is not the most interesting fact about her family as Kallas’s father, Siim Kallas was the governor of the newly independent Estonia’s Central Bank. The liberal Reform party (Kaja Kallas’s party) was established by Siim Kallas in 1994, which he led for a decade. Between 1995 and 1996 he worked as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia. From 2002 to 2003, Mr Kallas served as Prime Minister of Estonia and as a European Commissioner from 2004 to 2014. In both European Commissions, led by Jose Manuel Barroso, Siim Kallas also was a Vice-President. He ran in the Estonian presidential election in 2016, but was not elected.
Until 2011, Kaja Kallas ran a law firm in Estonia, when she switched to a political career as a member of the Reform party, which she led from 2018, before being elected as Prime Minister in 2021.
One of Kaja Kallas’s main strengths is that she’s been able to use her family’s history as political capital: in interviews and speeches she often mentions not only that she was born in Soviet occupation but also that her grandparents lost their freedoms. She says, she’s from a generation that has lived without freedom that’s why it’s so important for her to fight for freedom and justice. Based on statements like this, it’s easy to agree with an assessment that she’s brilliant when it comes to effective communication.
After becoming less popular in Estonia, a massive turnaround to international pool
’Kaja Kallas is controversial. She is not the first national leader to be more popular outside their country than within’, BBC described her in June.
Shortly after elections in Estonia, Kallas’s government – her Reform party and its coalition partners, including the centre-right Eesti 200 party and the Social Democrats – legalised same-sex marriage, which almost half of the country opposes. In addition, some taxes were raised to bring down the country’s budget deficit which also contributed to the fact that her popularity was falling.
When searching for possible reasons of her fading popularity, one should mention the energy crisis following the Russian invasion. According to the opinion of some Estonian opposition figures, the government didn’t have a clear and well-thought-out economic policy and an anti-crisis plan.
In addition to inproper management of the energy crisis, her popularity at home suffered when local media revealed last year that her husband was involved in a business which continued its operations in Russia even as PM Kallas expressed harsh criticism of all who did so. Reaction? Witch hunt!
After closing 2023 with downhill, 2024 kicked off with bad news for Kallas as according to an opinion poll conducted by one of Estonia’s most prominent daily newspapers, the Eesti Päevaleht, support for her as prime minister has fallen to its lowest level during her tenure in the post so far. In the period between April 2023 – when her coalition government entered into office – and mid-January 2024, the support for Kallas from nearly 40 percent had fallen to 16 percent. These figures clearly indicate the change in public mood in Estonia: while in February 2023, Kallas, who was also PM at the time, was still the most popular politician in her country, and people wanted her back as the head of the new government after a subsequent election, her personal rating went down in a year.
A decline in her personal popularity and support in Estonia may have been a warning signal as early as last autumn which could explain why she announced in mid-November 2023 that she would run for the post of NATO’s new secretary general. Although she would have been an ideal candidate for some allies, it soon turned out that, for the majority of NATO members, she was too radical anti-Russian, which made her unsuitable for the job. After that, there were signs that she would turn to the European arena, obviously in concert with those who had been guiding her political career from behind the scenes.
The fact that she was put on a wanted list by Russia in February 2024 for her role in removing Soviet-era monuments in Estonia, may be linked to the abovementioned plans. Actually, the issuing of the arrest warrant was beneficial to Kallas. Interestingly, the timing of this incident was just perfect, as it boosted her popularity, especially in the EU, at the right time. In addition, with her excellent communication skills, she could even fuel the scandal saying she was not afraid of the Kremlin. Kallas herself believed that the Russian warrant list was just an attempt to intimidate her amid speculation she could get a top European Union job. The timing of the scandal may be relevant as it happened just days before the Munich Security Conference which provided her an ideal political scene to call it ’Russia’s playbook and nothing surprising’.
A couple of months later, the Estonian Prime Minister’s poor domestic track continued when her Reform party came third in the European elections in June which was a truly disappointing result. Shortly afterwards, also in June, the Estonian Defence Ministry’s Permanent Secretary resigned in protest at the Estonian government’s inaction on the arms budget. Another failure for Kallas in her home country.
Meanwhile, Kallas, who’s been one of Russia’s most vocal critics and a supporter of Kyiv since 2022, spoke more and more about the growing tension between her country and neighbouring Russia over the war in Ukraine. In interviews, she used the same phrases as Volodymyr Zelenskyy when responding to questions about whether Estonia will be the next for Putin, saying that she’s afraid NATO might be next. She’s been confidently claiming in the last two years that the war in Ukraine ’will not end if we will stop supporting Ukraine’. As time went on, she grew more radical in her tone to maintain the ’hawkish’ rhetoric required by her supporters. ’It’s a question of when they will start the next war. The question for us is, what do we do with this time?’, she posed the question in an interview with Spanish El Pais in April. Whe she was asked by BBC on 1 June, what is Estonia’s plan B if Ukraine loses this war and Russia’s invasion ultimately succeeds, she replied that ’We have no Plan B for a Russian victory.’
Who are her main supporters?
It’s for sure not the Estonian people, as the polls cited above indicate.
She not only maintains close ties with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas Before Their Meeting – U.S. Embassy in Estonia (usembassy.gov) and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan Readout of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan with Prime Minister Kallas of Estonia | The White House, but also met President of the United States on several occasions. In March 2024, for example, she was the the guest of honour at the famous Gridiron Club Dinner Kaja Kallas will be attending the famous Gridiron Dinner in Washington, D.C. with the US President | Eesti Vabariigi Valitsus in Washington D.C. Kallas was seated at the table of Joe Biden which was a clear indication of her importance just months ahead of the European elections. ’Invitations like this one are a clear sign that Estonia has stood out as an ally,’ said Prime Minister Kallas, commenting on the invitation.
It should be noted that she never allows herself to criticise the United States in any way. ’America has been the one who was guarding the freedoms of people around the world. And I think this is what is at stake here, worldwide. So I think we are on the same side here.’ she said in an interview with NPR Estonian Prime Minister on how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has impacted her country : NPR in March to a question about how she assesses the delays of US aids to Ukraine.
In November 2023 – just as she was about to run for Secretary General of NATO -, Kallas not only met with members of the Biden administration and Congress during her working visit in Washington, but she participated in Politico’s annual Defense Summit, as well as delivered the opening speech at the EU-U.S. Defense and Future Forum.’The U.S. is our important ally and friend, and plays a leading role in the free world’s support for Ukraine,’ Kallas said according to a press release. ’Therefore it’s all the more important that we communicate face-to-face with one another’, she added.
Apart from her American friends, it’s also worth mentioning her supporters among European liberals who proved to be influential enough to succeed in nominating her for a European prize, perhaps, to distract the attention from her failures in her country. In September 2023, The European Liberal Forum (ELF) awarded Kallas the title of Liberal of the Year. Congratulations!
In a recent interview with The Baltic Sentinel, French journalist Sylvie Kauffmann discussed the complex political situation in Europe awaiting Kallas. According to her, Kallas’s primary challenges include, among others, avoiding the pitfalls that hindered her predecessor, Josep Borrell. Kauffmann assesses that if the top jobs are filled by figures like Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas, the EU policy towards Ukraine might not change significantly, however, national public opinions could influence it, and far right parties might have other priorities.
As new foreign policy chief of the European Union, Kallas will likely to be very different, more assertive and more vocal than her predecessor, Josep Borrell. As she’s not someone ready for a compromise, she may react sharply to critical voices, both from inside and outside the block. Her tenure will therefore, almost certainly, be a controversial one.
She’s an influential and energetic female leader, which really matters to the Commission President. Kallas will likely to be von der Leyen’s true ally, and not the Portugal Socialist Antonio Costa, the new president of the European Council. It’s very likely that Kallas will not hesitate to fully engage in herself in support for Ukraine, and neither will Ursula von der Leyen. Similarly, she will most probably have Kallas’s full support when it comes to boosting the European defence industry. (Note that Estonia has given the most aid to Ukraine in relation to GDP, has consistently called for tougher sanctions on Russia and more help for Ukraine, and is planning to raise its defence spending above 3% of GDP next year.
In addition to her merits, it should be emphasised that she is ’too hawkish’, and that may lead to serious problems. As an experienced Baltic politician, who knows Russia well and is aware of the importance of hybrid warfare and other Russian ’tricks’, she could truly add value to European foreign policy. However, the fact that she takes an uncompromising stance in terms of war and peace, particularly at a time when Ukraine’s support in Europe is on the decline and people would prefer peace talks, seriously limits her added value.
