Now is not the time for long speeches, so it is only right that I appoint you to your ministries with just three words: get to work!
Beyond that, all I would add is this:
You must all be aware that you do not have the traditional 100 days to settle in to your roles and that requesting such a grace period would, under the circumstances, be both unfair and inappropriate. Your work starts now. After swearing your oath of office before the Riigikogu this afternoon, you will not have another day off this summer.
You have been named a ‘crisis government’, but not by me: the way I see it, over the next eight months you must be a crisis-solving government. Figuratively speaking, you must be a government of firefighters, or first responders. The building must not be allowed to burn down; the patient must be saved.
We face a security crisis. We face an energy crisis. We face a cost-of-living crisis. We face a refugee crisis. We continue to face the coronavirus crisis.
These are problems that affect everyone in Estonia, indeed everyone in Europe. Solving them is your responsibility as the political leaders of your fields; the responsibility of the prime minister as the head of government and the person who holds that government together; and the responsibility of the chairmen of the parties who nominated you as ministerial candidates.
Yours is a government of three parties, so the responsibility is shared by all three of you.
You will be successful if – as hard as it may be – you do your best to ignore the forthcoming elections; if, as a coalition, you quickly start working as a team, on the same wavelength, avoiding as many stumbling blocks as possible; and if you recognise and take into consideration the opposition.
Coalitions come and go. Governments fall and new ones are appointed. These are ordinary aspects of democracy, the backbone of the way we run our country. Of course every minister and every government wants to make a glittering, indelible mark. I – and I hope others will follow my example – will not pre-judge you, but instead judge you after the fact, based on what you succeeded in doing or failed to achieve.
But for now: on with the job!
