Why Estonia Is Becoming Europe's New Economic Powerhouse

How the world's first digital nation built "E-everything".

[nicolaevespuccio]

My neighbour is Estonian, she is highly developed human, she can learn anything in such a short period of time.

[carleryk]

Just wanted to mention that we, ethnic Estonians, consider Soviet Union's time as occupation and annexation. It was a dreadful time which didn't only halt Estonia's economic growth but also changed our demographic composition so drastically through immigration that ethnic Estonians make up only about half of the capital Tallinn's population even today (compared to over 80% before Soviet occupation) and it's even worse in some other parts of the country. The safest and most logical way to stay alive as a small Finnic nation is to hold up close ties with the only other Finnic country in the world - Finland. Finland and Estonia are closest to each other linguistically and culturally. Our fast development wouldn't been possible without Finland's help.

[markuserikssen]

I've visited Estonia 3 times over the past 10 years and you can notice how much the country is progressing each time you get there. Buildings are restored, new tall buildings are popping up, the infrastructure gets improved, the old town becomes more beautiful, it's becoming a modern and trendy country. Keep it up, Estonia!

[transformersrevenge]

We Estonians are going through the toughest time since the 90's. There is a huge hole in the budget, and they are taxing everything from cars, sugar to the air we breathe (joke but the point stands), to find that money. Inflation gets bigger, housing is unaffordable, all professionals are fleeing the country to get better pay. It's a mess. And there is no end in sight. Prognosis is that things will get worse.

[omab]

The decline of Estonia includes the rise in taxes and the introduction of new taxes every year. Land tax used to increase by 10% annually; now it has increased by 100% this year. Real estate prices have risen by 97% over the past 10 years, driven by greed, and Estonia is ranked second in the EU for this, with Iceland being first at 107%.

I love my home and my people, but not those running it. I would not recommend a foreigner come here looking for a "better" life. We have had numerous startups go bankrupt, and the situation remains challenging. Pensions are being cut, child support for both large and small families is also being reduced by about 10%. Graduates from medical school often move to Finland or elsewhere.

Additionally, food prices have increased by more than 30% this year. Local farmers are closing down due to industry monopolization and increased taxes. Teachers earn the same wages as those working in supermarkets or gas stations and are exhausted by the system. We had a major teachers' strike that halted studies for two weeks, and the salary increase we received was just €18.

Until last year, Tallinn and every county bus route were free; now you have to pay for them. At the same time, donations per capita for the Ukraine war are the highest in the EU. Fuel prices are even higher than in Finland or other higher-GDP EU countries and continue to rise each month. We are experiencing record numbers of layoffs and company closures, with an 8% unemployment rate, which is a 47.2% increase compared to the same quarter last year. All these numbers are from the Statistical Office of Estonia (Stat.ee).

You might ask, why am I still staying here? It’s convenient and offers things that other regions don’t have, but the average Estonian has never been so poor in the history of our country, largely due to our current political party, Reformierakond.😊

[AmanitaMuscariaGuru]

As an Estonia citizen, who worked in Youth Politics, International affairs and left the country in 2019

Firstly:
In USSR Estonia got the biggest amount of investments and freedom than any other communist state.
Huge amount of money was invested in to construction of housings, factories and science.
Until today about 70% of people live in these houses until today.
It was the richest and most free part of Soviet Union - like California in US
Life in Estonia during that time was the highest between all communist countries.

Secondly,
Education in Estonia is good for tests, but teachers get the lowest income and no one wants to work in schools.
Kids, as my generation, have horrible memories how they were forced to study by teachers with unlimited power - now no one wants to remember that experience and dont respect work of teachers, as most of them were very agressive.

Thirdly,
Economical growth has nothing to do with happiness and a good life.
The Government with elite are very corrupt and are now stealing so much money from local people, that all businesses are going away. After the start of war, they increased prices for electricity in 20-100 times depending on day.
If you put together all taxes local people pay, then its about 80%+
So an avarege citizen works 10 months a year just to survive, earns for himself for 1 month and 1 month for vacation.
This is called Slavery.

I love Estonia and it has great potentional, but right now its not a good place to invest your energy, money or time.

The elite focuses on making Estonia the most expensive country of Europe, so to keep sucking up people money through mafia dirty system of taxations and police inforcement.

People in Estonia and smart, strong and patient.
My deep respect to all who are now fighting for their survival right now in this unfair political game.

[nicolasblanco]

I've been living in Estonia for more than 5 years and established companies there.
When I arrived, real estate prices were still fine, VAT was 20%, companies could operate without taxes on profit, which is a great way to accelerate development of startups (Estonia has this system were taxes are only paid when money goes out of the company to individuals through salaries and dividends).
Today the situation has completely changed. Real estate prices have skyrocketed, but more troublesome : the government is just focused on raising taxes every year for both individuals and companies. VAT has raised to 22, they want to raise it to 24%!
Income tax is being raised a few % also and also they want to introduce a corporate tax. Having no corporate tax was a huge advantage in terms of simplification, accountability, etc. It's a bit sad to see the direction the government is making.
I'm seeing more and more entrepreneurs and real estate people slowly moving to Latvia and Riga, where the prices there are still competitive.

[ClaudsiEmppu]

I am so proud of our Estonian brithers and sisters. I haver visited there multiple times after soviet times and theyr growt have been insane! Old Tallinn is my favorite place on this earth and i have visited many old towns around Europe. Every time i see food delivery robot on street here in finland i think about estonia and how far they have come. Love from Finland to Estonia

[loodusfoto]

I'd say it's pretty misleading. Handful success-stories does not mean that Estonia or it's people are becoming insanely rich. In fact currently Estonia has big deficit in budget and government is trying to fill the hole by introducing many new taxes. That means opposite to your claims - people are getting poorer while Estonia as a state is trying to keep it's head above the water. Hardly a way to become insanely rich ;) I'm guessing that it results in another exodus like during previous economic crisis when many estonians left to other countries like Finland. This time it looks like crisis is everywhere and nowhere to run.

[mikaelhugg]

I moved to Estonia from Finland 4 years ago and started a business here. I 100% agree with this video. Very on point and I really love being an entrepreneur here!

[ManRoyalUN]

I am a estonian. The problem is we have extremly high prices and our last 2 main politicians have crumpelete our economy. There are lots of people deciding to leave the country. The only place anyone would live at is South Estonia or capital for fast travel.
We are stronger than Latvia and Lithuania, but our small army is nothing towards the tank group near Narva border with a bomber airbase 200 kms away.

[RAZR-BLADE]

As an Estonian citizen, I can say that this video is complete bullshit.
1) Development projects were constructed thanks to European regional development fund. Without the money from EU, Estonia would look like a third world country right now. The only credit you can give to the government is that they took as much money from the EU funds as they could.
2) That whole argument regarding PCs and "encouraged to use them" in schools is entirely misleading. During my student days (2007-2019), yes my school had PCs, but they were gatekept from students. The only time when you were allowed to use them was during computer classes, which were at best once a week and not even every year. There was never any "we are growing a coder generation" intentions. In fact, those computer classes were very basic and taught you how to use MS Office, not how to code.
3) "Revolutionary way of teaching mathematics" - this whole part is nonsense. Most math teachers were (and in some schools still are) old, and they taught math the same way they did during Soviet times. The only difference was in book visual design.

Estonia is a decent country to live in. But it is definitely not rich and most likely never will be. Videos like these are misleading and essential just a crap content.

[dragm]

Estonian uranium was used for USSR nuclear weapons is what mining natural resources meant

[jaybirdie.]

Building wealth involves developing good habits like regularly putting money away in intervals for solid investments. Financial management is a crucial topic that most tend to shy away from, and ends up haunting them in the near future. Putting our time and effort in activities and investments that will yield a profitable return in the future is what we should be aiming for. Success depends on the actions or steps you take to achieve it, "I pray that anyone who reads this will be successful in life

[kevinkull]

As an estonian i say to this video very inspirational but also very false lol.

[netiturtle]

Kudos for finding actual Estonian Soviet footage, instead of generic stock Soviet clips. And what an unpleasant throwback, time is supposed to make memories sweeter, but this was genuinely grey and hopeless time

[LeUtubeAcc]

Several problems here..
Firstly our government which does not favour wage workers, it is in my opinion the only way capitalism thrives here. Pay workers shitty wage = many opportunities to hire cheap labor, otherwise business suffer, so they make low-wage workers suffer instead. You can be successful in Estonia if have a good education, are born into wealth or have connections to get a job. Like for example our ex-prime minister had spoken out against russia (absolutely shat on Russia) severing our ties with our neighbour, justified yes, because of Ukraine-Russian war, but at the same time while every other business stopped trading with russia, Kaja Kallas' family traded with russian oligarchs making a HUGE profit for themselves. Absolutely hypocritical! and nobody cared. and that's while she got 7k+ monthly + benefits (same wage as in Germany's Bundestag, except Germany is richer!)
I'm not sure we can have our hopes up with such corrupt ministers.

Yes, our capital has become more renovated and beautiful, but who does that really benefit? Housing market owned by rich and foreign businessmen? Tourism?

Secondly how can Estonia become rich if we have extremely low birth rates. Considering how our politicians love the smell of money and cheap labor they might open our borders for immigrants.
It's funny how our country is greeting immigrants with open arms but if you want to work in costumer service you HAVE to know Estonian language by law.

Minimum wage got raised by 100+€ a year or so ago, where they funnily announced that it wont be raised again soon. Yet they raise parliament wages very regularly.
After that one of the manufacturing company had layoffs, because ''paying workers is getting too expensive'' . And that's for a sewing job. Can you imagine sewing 168+ hours a month so you can get under 1k €, while rent is 400€ on average.

Estonians often joke about how we were once slaves but personally I think nothing changed. It's still pretty much slavery if your only income is a salary job.

[Yusef-uhwl]

Estonia is very well known in indonesia

[oleksandrbyelyenko]

Obviously it is Estonia. Pretty well known in Europe 😅

[abcdedfg]

They also have 28 days paid leave. It helps when employees have real positive incentives to be efficient. Time is short, people want enough of it to enjoy for themselves. Just my opinion.