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Address of the President of the Republic on the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Paikuse rural municipality 27 October 2001
27.10.2001


Distinguished County Governor,
Distinguished Rural Municipality Mayor and the Chairperson of the Council of the Rural Municipality,
Good people of Paikuse,

Estonians perceive local governments as a traditional way of organising their life and activities. Our nation's statehood is very young, if compared to that of most European states, just slightly over 30 years: 20 years before the war, and 10 years now. Nevertheless, the rural municipalities were formed under the wings of the tsarist eagle. Valuable experience gained from working in local governments was extremely important for the process of achieving our independence. These were the very places where the leaders of our independence learned how to work in governmental bodies, and how to organise the life of a country. One of the most prominent lawyers of Estonia, Mr. Jüri Uluots, wrote in 1933 that local governments of Estonia are the cornerstones of our independence. This explains why one of the first tasks of the occupational forces was the assimilation of local governments, turning them into the extension of the central administration.

Ten years ago, when the opportunity came to restore Estonia's independence, one of our first responsibilities was to recreate the foundation, to establish the status of our local governments, the rural municipalities and towns. We could not do it without due consideration, we had to take into account the uniqueness of our state and history. As the entire world and the governments of its nations had continued to progress, it was also necessary to analyse this experience, and utilise the best in it. Our principle tasks included the establishment of the local governments, the decentralisation of power and the differentiation of the powers of the national and local authorities. The administrative-territorial reform was to follow later. Estonia was one of the first states in the former Eastern block where the formation of democratic structures began at the local level.

Implementation of this process was not easy. There was insufficient time for comprehensive analysis, and for this reason the realisation of reform based on the examples of other states sometimes failed to give the expected results. Today we still face the task of determining the administrative capacity of functioning local governments in all its details, while at the same time taking into consideration regional individualities. Only then will be able to determine what measures must be taken immediately.

Neither was it easy for the local authorities themselves, because they had to outline their statutes and development plans even before the status of local government was determined. For decades there had been no need for such far-reaching plans and visions, because under the totalitarian regime "visions" came from central agencies. The process of preparing a development plan helped every new local government to determine the issues that they were about to face. The first rural municipality that was granted local government status was Muhu, and the first town - Kuressaare.

On one hand the subject matter of the administrative reform must be establishing the conditions for servicing the citizens in the most feasible and cost-effective way, and on the other hand extending and expanding the democratic governance the nation. First of all this means bringing the state closer to the people, because people are, in fact, the reason a state is created. Implementation of the administrative reform is an extremely complicated task. Maybe this is the very reason why within the last couple of years the territorial part of the administrative reform has become the focal point of discussions. Naturally, this work needs to be done too. But without substantive and reasoned changes towards the expansion of participatory democracy, and without bringing the decision making process as close as possible to every citizen of our state, formal changes have very little use.

Nevertheless there is nothing unachievable and impossible in all this. No doubt you have a good reason to be content about those things that have within the past 10 years changed beyond recognition and have become much better. And these are merely the first ten years of Estonian statehood after regaining independence.

I wish the people of the Paikuse rural municipality happiness, strength and confidence in themselves as well as in their state and people.
I believe that you have achieved a lot. It is not easy to list all your achievements, but there are many more yet, and you should feel genuinely pleased with them.

Once more, congratulations!


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