Kersti Kaljulaid Quotes
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Digital society is born when your people refuse to use paper. And in our country, we know that our people refuse to use paper. If you arrive at such a point in your development, you have to make your digital state always secure.
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Too many people in the world associate democracy with their ability to go and buy more and more every year. I come from a country where it's much more popular to remind people that democracy is available at every income level, and this is something which you need to protect.
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I am very worried about politicians who know that their countries are greatly benefiting financially and at the same time are saying that the European Union is not good for us. The message has to be coherent.
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Estonians are much more used to Internet banking rather than an online credit card.
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We have every reason to put our trust in NATO and in transatlantic cooperation.
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We are past the stage in our relations that you come to Washington with an empty goody bag and then you go back with a bag filled with stuff.
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Not everything is so bad... Whichever way you look at it, we feel that we can face the future when the liberal, democracy-based world sticks together. We have great trust that it will.
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As the president of Estonia, I represent the only truly digital society which actually has a state; almost all our citizens' interactions with the government, including voting, can be done securely online, and our 'e-residents' can incorporate and run their businesses in Estonia without ever having to set foot here.
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Traditionally, nations have harnessed taxpayers to their territory by making almost all social guarantees dependent on working in one country, every day, every month, and for at least three decades. In creating free movement of people, this web has only got more complex but never disappeared.
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There are high hopes of France and what they're trying to achieve there by liberalising the labour market and other reforms. You lose some, you gain some.
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Small nations have no time for small goals - they have to think big in order to become contributors.
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People everywhere in the world have Russian connections. There is nothing wrong with having Russian connections as long as you're transparent about it.
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Our main concern will always be security.
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Everybody has the right to decide their own fate.
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We've had Vice President Pence visiting Tallinn, where he met not only with me but also with my other Baltic colleagues - Lithuanian President Ms. Grybauskaite and Latvian President Mr. Vejonis. And, of course, Vice President Pence has been very clear that NATO acts as a whole. Attack against one is attack against all.
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In Estonia, the Russian minority can move freely, travel freely, work anywhere in Europe.
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In Estonia, our greatest national treasure is our egalitarian educational system.
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Governments don't want to be the last ones in the digital sphere if their people and businesses are already there. We have to make clear that the free movement of services in the E.U. also applies in the digital sphere. The shortcut is to create a digital union.
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Sometimes I hear, particularly from Russia, that we simply hate Russia and don't like to co-operate, that we are hysterical about the risks. But this is totally untrue. We would greatly benefit economically if our neighbour was a democratic, developing country.
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Estonia maintains a two-language school system. I don't know many countries in the world that provide a system like ours. We are making sure that our Russian-speaking minority feels comfortable and involved in this country.
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Estonia is proud of the fact that the country today has a flourishing and happy Jewish life.
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The U.S., together with trans-Atlantic allies, never recognized the occupation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union. Moscow faced pressure or retaliation every time it tried to move toward official recognition, or at least acceptance, of its claim that the Baltic states were Soviet republics.
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In 2008, when Russia attacked Georgia, Western countries took it as an isolated incident, but probably this was the start of the push against our underlying international security architecture. And this push then started a landslide which in 2014 resulted in Crimean occupation.
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Every state aspiring to be part of the free world, able to decide its own destiny, deserves its chance. They may, in a not too distant future, contribute to all of us in ways we cannot imagine today.