“To be a leader is to treat every person with respect”: Kaja Kallas on the EYL40 programme

Kaja Kallas, the first female Prime Minister of Estonia, is a stalwart of European values and solidarity. Named among the TIME100 Next rising individuals, she is a strong voice of support for Ukraine and champions ambitious climate and energy policies. She was nominated as a European Young Leader in 2017 while serving in the European Parliament.

Kaja Kallas became prime minister of Estonia at the age of 43, in January 2021, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Just over a year later, she was confronted by the unprecedented triple crisis represented by the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis, and soaring inflation.

Yet despite the threats to her tiny country – which was part of the Soviet Union only a little over three decades ago, and whose leaders are understandably nervous about the intentions of its giant neighbour, Russia – she professes hope for its future, and that of Europe. "My feeling is quite strong," she says, highlighting the impact of the current crises on the way the European Union works. "There's something positive in everything negative. We have never been able to be so united in Europe."

Although Estonia joined the EU back in 2004, she says, in some ways it is only in the current crisis that it has been given full consideration due to its geographical position and historical experience. "This is the first time we feel we are equal at the table," she says. "We feel we are being listened to. For my people, after being independent for thirty-one years, we're at the point where we're on a level with our European peers." This, she says, boosts here hope and support for "a Europe stronger than before" the crisis.

"'Never alone again' was our slogan," she says of Estonia after the restoration of its independence in 1991. "Now I feel we are listening to each other more." She cites her term as a member of the European Parliament, from 2014 to 2018 – during which time she was nominated as a European Young Leader. "Everyone there was talking about their own history and story but nobody was listening to the stories of others," she recalls. "Many countries have a difficult past. In Europe we are a small continent but we are so diverse."

There are, Kallas notes, "so many challenges" facing Europe's leaders. "It's going to be a very hard winter: you can't make this pain vanish," she laments. "Our enemy is not within our society, but outside it. So if we are divided within our society, we will lose. The biggest challenge is to keep together so as to not leave anyone behind, but also to not spend all our resources on short-term problems when we have long-term challenges."

While there is certainly a need to "put all pressure on Russia to end the war" as part of efforts to restore "a rules-based international order" – and to deal with the challenges stemming from the war, such as the energy crisis and high inflation – it is important for leaders not to lose sight of underlying issues, among which climate change is the most serious. "These are long-term challenges," she says. "Don't spend all your political capital on short-term challenges. We must keep people united."

Keeping that sense of perspective was, she says, particularly difficult during the pandemic. "People want someone who has a strong hand," she recalls. "If you are a liberal at heart it is very hard, closing everything. It was a very difficult time, trying to balance between keeping society as open as possible but not compromising our health system." She notes that not only the general public but many senior officials were not always good at taking account of all those affected by the different decisions. "People empathise with visible victims but what about the invisible ones?" she queries. "Those with mental health problems, school-age children, and companies that might go out of business." In addition, there is the issue of the short versus the long term, particularly where children's education is concerned. The government was, she says, at times more or less evenly split on whether to close schools down or keep them open.

In terms of offering advice for prospective leaders of tomorrow, Kallas hesitates at first, but then dives in with a personal recommendation. "One principle is very important to be a leader is to treat every person with respect," she says. "They say that you meet people twice: once on the way up and then again on your way down." Then she stresses the need to find ways to remain open to new ideas and perspectives. "Reading is good for opening up your mind and thinking," she says. "Also meeting others and really listening, so you can pick up perspective. You must approach them with an open mind."

She cites Henry Kissinger's maxim about information being available online, but books are a better source of deeper knowledge, properly digested, while in-person learning, for example through personal conversations, is a route to real wisdom. All this, says Kallas, is needed to work out "how to put the pieces together to build a foundation" that will serve you in good stead in a crisis. "When you have built this strong foundation, you can reach wise decisions," she argues.

The European Young Leaders programme was interesting precisely because of the opportunity to learn directly from other participants, she notes. "This network stays with you," she says, adding that this is the kind of tool that Estonians have traditionally lacked. "Old European [Union] countries already have networks that help them navigate" institutions and structures, while the Estonia and its neighbours "were behind the Iron Curtain so didn't have those."

She also praises the fact that in the EYL40 programme "we all come from different backgrounds – the economy, NGOs... These different approaches help make the picture bigger. In the real world it is all combined and the different aspects are very important. "Personally it gave me a lot of new and interesting ideas – and very many book recommendations!" she says, summarising the EYL40 programme in one word as "enlightening".

? Photo: Raul Mee (EU2017EE). Link.