Estonia’s president signed into law a constitutional amendment banning non-EU citizens from taking part in local elections on Wednesday, April 9th. The move mostly affects the large Russian minority in the Baltic state.
This follows last month’s initiative, when lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favour of the change on March 26 amid growing security fears, ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It primarily affects around 80,000 Russians who live in the former Soviet republic, which gained independence in 1991.
President Alar Karis’s office announced the ban on “third-country nationals” participating in local elections in a statement, saying it was about “protecting the unity of Estonian society.”
TEC NEWS/Agence France-Presse
