TALLINN. April 12 (Interfax) - The Estonian parliament on Wednesday empowered Kaja Kallas, leader of the Reform Party which won the parliamentary election, to form a new government.
Out of 101 members of the Estonian parliament, 59 voted for Kallas and 38 against.
She informed lawmakers that the Reform Party had reached a coalition deal with the Estonia 200 party and the Social Democrats.
The new coalition considers security to be a key area in the government's future activities, she said. In particular, it plans to raise defense spending to 3% of the country's GDP, plus expenditure on accepting allied troops stationed in Estonia, and to continue the policy of EU and NATO enlargement. She announced that the United States is Estonia's strategic partner.
In order to solve the problem of a dramatically growing budget deficit, the new government plans to raise sales tax and income tax by two percentage points to 22%, introduce a tax on cars, abolish preferential tax rates on dividends, and other similar measures. At the same time, the government will cut infrastructure investments, Kallas said.
As part of its Ukraine policy, the coalition has pledged to pursue a policy of tightening anti-Russian sanctions, supporting Ukraine economically, politically and militarily, backing its ambitions for NATO membership, and using confiscated Russian assets for Ukraine's reconstruction.
The coalition parties will continue the course towards abolishing Russian schools and transferring compulsory, general and vocational education to the Estonian language, she said.
The future government is expected, without changing the constitution, "to elaborate a legal basis for suspending the voting rights of Russian and Belarusian citizens in municipal elections, in collaboration with experts in constitutional law," Kallas said.
The new government will be composed of 13 ministers instead of the previous 15. In particular, the Reform Party will get seven government seats, while Estonia 200 and the Social Democrats will each have three ministerial portfolios.
The new coalition will have 60 parliament seats out of a total of 101.