The Diplomat
Mariin Ratnik, Ambassador of Estonia, gave a conference entitled ‘Estonia: a digital society close to nature’ yesterday at the Club Financiero Génova in Madrid, organised by the Instituto de Estudios Históricos Bances y Valdés, in collaboration with the Corps de la Nobleza del Principado de Asturias.
In this year in which 100 years of diplomatic relations with Spain are being celebrated, Ambassador Mariin Ratnik highlighted “the important role of her country in Europe, given that since 2014 it has been a member of the European Union and NATO”.
“Estonia, continued the ambassador, has taste and value to be visited and ease of doing business, as all the necessary steps from the creation of a company can be done digitally.” Moreover, she continued, “in my country we have the highest concentration of start-ups per capita in Europe”.
Ambassador Mariin Ratnik highly valued the innovation in Estonia of online voting in all types of elections, from local elections to the European Parliament, which since 2005 has been very successful among young people, and has been growing in percentage terms ever since. “In Estonia, he noted, 86% of the population has direct access to the internet.
The education sector was also the subject of her analysis. “In Estonia, she said, a lot of importance is given to information technology. All educational materials have been computerised since the end of 2020. In this way, everything is registered and computerised and parents can also help in education. Estonia has the honour of being at the top of the annual PISA report produced by the OECD.
After commenting that his country’s relations with Russia are “complicated”, he highlighted the good moment of diplomatic relations with Spain. “The two countries have a very similar way of thinking, we are calm and very friendly. In the energy sector we have the same desires and concerns”. Finally, Mariin Ratnik declared his intention during his tenure in Spain to further expand these good relations. “Spain, he pointed out, has enormous potential on a global level, especially in the digitalisation sector”.
