Kaja Kallas resigns to become EU foreign policy chief

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has been nominated by European Union (EU) leaders to become the EU’s next foreign policy chief, replacing Josep Borrell who has held the position since 2019.

In office since 2021, she handed in her resignation to Estonian President Alar Karis on Monday, July 15, during a meeting at the presidential palace in the capital, Tallinn. The decision automatically triggered the resignation of Kallas’ tripartite cabinet, made up of his center-right Reform Party, the Social Democratic Party and the liberal Estonia 200 party. The caretaker government will remain in place until the new cabinet is sworn in, most likely in late July or early August.

Estonia’s 47-year-old Kremlin opponent Kaja Kallas has been one of the most vocal defenders of Ukraine in Europe since Russia invaded in February 2022. Summing up her three and a half years in power, Kallas said: “This period was full of crises, significant events (such as) the coronavirus, the economic recession and the war in Europe, when Russia destroyed our previous security picture with its aggression in Ukraine”.

Kallas even drew the ire of Russia after demolishing Soviet-era monuments in his own country, which the Kremlin called an “act hostile to historical memory.”

The Reform Party announced on June 29 that it had chosen party veteran and Climate Minister Kristen Michal as its candidate for prime minister to replace Kallas. He represented Estonia at a NATO summit in Washington last week.