A record number of civic initiatives have been signed via the Citizen Initiative Portal in 2021, with more petitions gaining the thousand or more digital signatures for them to qualify for Riigikogu consideration in the first seven months of the year so far, than in the whole of 2020. The addition of an option to address petitions to local authorities has also boosted the number of applications.
Almost 36,000 signatures were added to the Estonian Green Party s petition to change the Family Law to allow same-sex by the closing date on Sunday. The petition will now be considered by the Riigikogu.
The petition, launched on the Citizen Initiative Portal rahvaalgatus.ee, was signed by 35,805 people by the midnight deadline.
Within the first few days of the petition (Petitsioon perekonnaseaduse muutmiseks) launching at the end of October it had gathered more than 30,000 signatures making it the most signed petition in the portal s history.
If a petition is signed by more than 1,000 people it is then forwarded to the Riigikogu for discussion after checking it complies with the law.
ERR News looks back at 2020 which was, if nothing else, an eventful year.
As no one needs reminding, 2020 was dominated by the coronavirus pandemic and its knock-on effects on everyday life and the economy, several EKRE-led scandals and the upcoming marriage referendum.
But other, more positive events also occurred, such as Estonia taking up its first non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
The ERR News team has looked back over the top stories of 2020.
January
The year started with Estonia formally commencing its two-year stint as a non-permanent member on the UN Security Council (UNSC).
Estonia had been awarded the post in June the previous year, and joined Niger, Tunisia, Vietnam and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as non-permanent members for 2020-2021.