Toomas Vitsut is an Estonian

Estonians

Estonians are a Finnic people closely related to the Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia. They speak a Finnic language known as Estonian...

 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, the Chairman of the City Council of Tallinn

Tallinn

Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

 since 2005. He is also the founder of the institutional round table for resolving the ethnic tensions caused by the conflict around controversial Bronze Soldier statue in Tallinn. Vitsut belongs to the Estonian Centre Party

Estonian Centre Party

The Estonian Centre Party is a centrist, social liberal party in Estonia. Keskerakond is a member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party. It has the largest membership of an Estonian party, with over 12 000 members....

.

Bronze Soldier conflict and Vitsut's try to resolve

The decision of the Estonian government to remove the memorial and the remnants of the 13 Soviet soldiers to a military cemetery on the outskirts of Tallinn sparked off protest by the Russian-speaking population in Estonia at the end of April 2007. The protests of the defenders of the statue turned into riots with the police during the attempt to dismantle the memorial overnight. The Russian parliament threatened Estonia with trade sanctions and with breaking off diplomatic relations and pro-Putin activists picketed the Estonian embassy in Moscow.

The Estonian daily Postimees quoted Toomas Vitsut on the 4th July 2006 as follows: "The current situation, when the police constantly guards part of the city centre of Tallinn, is not normal. The declarations of some politicians who have supported the dismantling the statue and undigging the graves is the source of instability and uncertainty. Moving this statue needs the political consensus and the capital should be a lighthouse of the conciliation for the whole society." Vitsut proposed to convene the round table for resolving the ethnic conflict, which had to be consist of every part of the argument: his proposal was accepted and this assembly was made up.

In the round table

Round table

A round table is a table which has no "head" and no "sides", and therefore no one person sitting at it is given a privileged position and all are treated as equals. The idea stems from the Arthurian legend about the Knights of the Round Table in Camelot....

 were represented all lobby groups of the Bronze Soldier topic: the veterans of the German and Soviet armies, a small group of Russophone

Russophone

A Russophone is literally a speaker of the Russian language either natively or by preference. At the same time the term is used in a more specialized meaning to describe the category of people whose cultural background is associated with Russian language regardless of ethnic and territorial...

s Nochnoy Dozor

Nochnoy Dozor

Nochnoy dozor Nochnoy Dozor may mean:*Night Watch , 1998 opening of Sergei Lukyanenko's Watch fantasy tetralogy*Night Watch , Russian blockbuster based on Lukyanenko's novel...

(Night Watch), the Estonian nationalists, the representatives of Tallinn and Estonian Republic. As Vitsut lately remembered, this assembly was very quarrelsome: "The old veterans of both sides were calm and wanted to resolve this case quietly, trying together to find a new place for the statue. But the young politicians and political wannabes were furious and uncompromised - they tried to escale the conflict even more serious. There were minority of the mindful voices and that business ended up involving the vandalism in Tallinn´s city-centre."

Proposal to solidarize the Estonian mortgage loan market

As the Chairman of the City Council of Tallinn, Vitsut proposed to dissipate risks of the Estonian mortgage lenders by the government securities. According to Vitsut, Ginnie Mae in the US market would be a good example for Estonia. Estonia has only half of the GDP per capita of the US level, but the unemployment rate is comparable with US. The efforts of the Estonian economy lead this country to the real estate bubble in 2007, when Vitsut made his proposal. "Not every family is able to take a risky mortgage loan with high and unfixed interest rates and the state would guarantee mortgages for a lender through the national loan associations," Vitsut said. Vitsut emphasized that 33 millions low income individuals in USA are received government benefits to get their homes, which is not possible in ultra-liberal Estonia. This statement could not get the attention of the public, because it was made by a representative of the opposition.

Alleged business with Libya

On February 2011 it was stated in Estonian TV

Eesti Televisioon

Eesti Televisioon is the national public television station of Estonia. It made its first broadcast on 19 July 1955.The bulk of ETV's funding comes from government grant-in-aid, around 15% of which is in turn funded by the fees paid by Estonian commercial broadcasters in return for their...

 program Pealtnägija (Spectator) that a ship Balkan Star, which belonged to Vitsut exported explosives to Mediterranean countries, including Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

. Vitsut did not deny the allegations.

Footnotes