Estonia - Overview

Key Findings

Favourable
Rights associated with long-term residence
Rights associated with family reunion
Eligibility and integration measures for labour market access

Unfavourable
Eligibility and security of status for nationality
Fields of application and equality policies for anti-discrimination law

Critically unfavourable (0% score)
Dual nationality

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Overview
Most legally-resident non-Estonian nationals are not migrants who crossed Estonia's international border, but Russians who migrated inside the Soviet Union or their descendents. Newcomers are mostly family members of residents or workers from the former Soviet Union. Asylum flows remain negligible.

The state programme on "Integration in Estonian Society" has concluded for 2000-2007"1 and a new one is under preparation. In 2006, a draft law on Equal Treatment was introduced to transpose the EC Directive on Racial Equality, after an earlier bill was withdrawn.

Estonia's integration policies vary widely from strand to strand. The strongest policy area is access to the labour market, the most favourable in the EU-10, followed by family reunion and long-term residence. Reunited family members and long-term residents enjoy some of the most favourable rights in the EU-10. On the other hand, Estonia's nationality policies are the third worst in the 28, just before AT, GR, and LV. MIPEX finds that Estonia has the least favourable anti-discrimination laws for promoting integration.

Pathways to Estonian citizenship for Russian and stateless residents After independence, 32% of Estonia's population was left with ‘undefined citizenship' in 1992. Relaxations in the high-level Estonian language and history tests and cheap language education brought increases in naturalisations to the point that 7% of Estonian residents were naturalised ethnic Russians in 2006. Yet roughly 9% are still stateless and 7% hold Russian passports. For more, see Gelazis, The European Union and the Statelessness Problem in the Baltic States, European Journal of Migration and Law (Nijhoff, Vol. 6, No. 3, Nijmegen, NL, 2004) 225-242.

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Integration Policy Timeline

16/02/2006
Decree increased reimbursement of language training costs up to 100% for successful applicants for naturalisation

19/04/2006
Amendments to the Law on Aliens transposed EC Directive on long-term residence

08/2006
UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommended Estonia enact comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation through full transposition of EC Directive on racial equality

14/02/2007
First reading of new draft Law on Equal treatment to transpose EC Directives on racial equality and employment equality

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 Migrant Profile

Footnotes
1 See http://www.meis.ee/eng
2 Eurostat (estimates of nationals' and non-nationals' distribution from previously published figures)
3 Estonian Labour Force Survey 2004 (annual average)
4 Eurostat (estimates of nationals' and nonnationals' distribution from previously published figures)
5 Urban Audit (non EU-15)
6 Statistical Office of Estonia, 2000 Population and Housing Census: Citizenship, Nationality, Mother Tongue and Command of Foreign Languages II, 2001, Table 3
7 UNHCR, based on asylum applications submitted
8 Rough estimation based on Estonian Labour force survey 2004 (annual average) and data of the Estonian Education Information database (EHIS)
9 European Labour Force Survey (2006q2)
10 European Labour Force Survey (2006q2)
11 Eurostat (includes EU nationals)
12 Eurostat (non EU-25)