This week, in a run-up to the European Parliament election on 25 May, we interview one candidate from each major party in Estonia. Our third interview is with a political activist Oudekki Loone, one of the candidates from the Estonian Centre Party.
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Have you ever lived outside Estonia? If so, for how long and for what purpose?
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What are the main policy objectives your party stands for in the EP elections? How does it differ from the other mainstream parties (leaving out far-right / far-left eurosceptic programmes)?
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What are you personally standing for? What is important to you? Please name three things (falling into the exclusive competence of the EU) that you would like to see in the EU legislation within the next parliamentary term?
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How to boost growth in the eurozone (IMF prediction: 1% in 2014 and 1,4% in 2015)? How to create jobs, fight youth unemployment (huge problem in Southern Europe) – all in all, how to make EU more competitive while preserving our social model?
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Are you in favour of further European integration, and if so, in which policy areas? If not, why not?
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What are your views on immigration into Europe? Currently, the southern members of the EU, such as Greece and Italy, get the most of the illegal immigration from Africa and Asia. Should other member states share their burden and accommodate these immigrants?
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How to improve the image of the European Union among Europeans themselves? How to bring the symbolic value (started as a peace project) back to the EU? What should be the next big political project (after the euro)?
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Some politicians, including the current Estonian EU commissioner Siim Kallas, have said there are many Estonian-invented e-solutions that could be used all over Europe, but so far we have been quite slow to export them, apart from a few exceptions. How do you think we could improve on that? What can Estonia teach Europe?
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Note from the Editor
Just as we interviewed Yoko Alender from IRL, Kaja Kallas from the Reform Party and Marianne Mikko from the Social Democratic Party, we sent our questions to Oudekki Loone from the Estonian Centre Party. Despite confirming her willingness and many promises to answer the questions, Oudekki Loone has sadly decided to ignore our request. However, we’re publishing these questions and their non-answers in order to give all our selected candidates an equal platform.
Typical Centre Party behaviour, it seems. Their leader is also known to duck out from the debates. Their entire party is like a cancer in Estonia.
This just seems like laziness. It makes me wonder how effective a representative she will be.