Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has submitted her resignation to take a job as the European Union’s foreign policy chief, the president’s office said.
Kallas led her liberal Reform Party to victories in the 2019 and 2023 parliamentary elections and has been head of government since 2021.
She will remain Estonia’s caretaker prime minister until the next government is confirmed in early August, Estonia’s public broadcaster ERR reported.
The Reform Party has appointed Climate Minister Kristen Michal as the next prime minister, subject to negotiations to form a new cabinet with its coalition partners, the liberal Estonia 200 party and the Social Democrats.
Kallas’ party will elect a new leader on September 8.
Estonia under Kallas was one of the most vocal supporters of Ukraine within Europe following the large-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.
President Alar Karis summed up Kallas’ three-and-a-half-year term to the Baltic News Service: “It was a time full of crises, milestones such as the coronavirus, the economic recession and the war in Europe, when Russia destroyed our previous security image with its aggression in Ukraine.”
Kallas’ last major assignment was to represent Estonia at a NATO summit in Washington last week.
Michal’s appointment as prime minister must be approved by Karis and the 101-seat parliament, where the coalition has a comfortable majority. He has been climate minister since April last year.
The 49-year-old former Minister of Economic Affairs and Justice has been active in the Reform Party, Estonia’s main political establishment, since the late 1990s.
with AP