• Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President of Estonia Alar Karis on the sidelines of the AI Action Summit in Paris on February 11. This was the first meeting between the two leaders.

• The two leaders expressed satisfaction at the growing bilateral cooperation in various fields, including trade and investment, IT and digital, culture, tourism and people-to-people ties. They discussed the ongoing bilateral cooperation in the field of cybersecurity.

• They noted the importance of the India-Estonia partnership also in the context of the India-EU strategic partnership.

• Estonia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia. Forests cover over half of Estonian territory. The country has a population of 1.3 million. Tallinn is the capital city.

India-Estonia Relations

• India’s contact with Estonia goes back several centuries. Estonian seafarer A.J. Von Krusen Stern visited Madras and Calcutta in 1797. The ‘PühhapäiwaWahhe-luggemissed’ (Sunday Intermediary Readings) of Otto W. Masing (1818) was the first written work in Estonian to refer to India.

• India recognised the Republic of Estonia in September 1991, a month after it declared its independence from the Soviet Union. 

• With Estonia’s expertise in digital governance and cybersecurity, and India’s expanding economic and geopolitical footprint, the partnership between two countries could evolve into a stronger economic and technological alliance in the coming years.

• Diplomatic relations were established in December 1991. 

• Estonia opened its embassy in New Delhi in February 2012. The Embassy of India in Tallinn was opened on December 28, 2021.

• Both India and Estonia served together in the UNSC as non-permanent members in 2021. Both countries closely cooperated with each other on issues of mutual interest.

• The Baltic region (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) has been gaining importance in India’s Look West policy and Europe outreach. Estonia’s participation in the India-Nordic-Baltic format shows increasing diplomatic engagement between India and Northern Europe.

• The amount of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) equity inflows from Estonia to India from till June 2022 was $3.54 million. 

• Major Estonian imports from India include machinery and equipment, garments, knit wear, iron & steel articles of leather, saddles and harness, travel goods, hand bags, coffee, tea, spices, footwear and pharmaceutical products.

• Major Estonian exports to India include iron and steel, fertilizers, electrical machinery, paper and paperboard, paper pulp, veneer, etc.

• Estonia, home to NATO's cyber defence centre, is recognised as one of the world's most digitally advanced nations, is known for its e-governance model, cybersecurity expertise, and digital identity system.

• Ministry of IT and Electronics India (MeitY) has signed an MoU with e-Governance Academy for capacity building programme. In August 2019, an MOU for cooperation in e-governance and emerging digital technologies was signed between MeitY and Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs & Communications. 

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)