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76-521: The Estonian Centre Party ( Estonian : Eesti Keskerakond , EK ) is a populist political party in Estonia . It was founded in 1991 as a direct successor of the Popular Front of Estonia , and it is currently led by Mihhail Kõlvart . The party was founded on 12 October 1991 from the basis of the Popular Front of Estonia after several parties split from it. At that time, the party was called

152-566: A Finnic language rather than a variety of Estonian. Modern standard Estonian evolved in the 18th and 19th centuries based on the dialects of northern Estonia. During the Medieval and Early Modern periods, Estonian accepted many loanwords from Germanic languages , mainly from Middle Low German (Middle Saxon) and, after the 16th-century Protestant Reformation , from the Standard German language. Estonia's oldest written records of

228-455: A broad classical education and knew Ancient Greek , Latin and French . Consider roim 'crime' versus English crime or taunima 'to condemn, disapprove' versus Finnish tuomita 'to condemn, to judge' (these Aavikisms appear in Aavik's 1921 dictionary). These words might be better regarded as a peculiar manifestation of morpho-phonemic adaptation of a foreign lexical item. Article 1 of

304-742: A coalition with the Social Democratic Party. Recent polls suggest the party is especially popular amongst Estonia's Russophone minority. On 9 April 2012, eight prominent Centre Party members decided to leave the party citing frustration of their attempts to bring openness and transparency into party leadership. Previously MP Kalle Laanet was expelled on 21 March for his criticism of the party leadership. The leaving politicians included MEPs Siiri Oviir and Vilja Savisaar-Toomast , MPs Inara Luigas , Lembit Kaljuvee , Deniss Boroditš and Rainer Vakra , and also Ain Seppik , Toomas Varek . In

380-648: A common feature of Estonian typologically over the course of history with the development of a rich morphological system. Word order is considerably more flexible than in English, but the basic order is subject–verb–object . The speakers of the two major historical languages spoken in Estonia, North and South Estonian , are thought by some linguists to have arrived in Estonia in at least two different migration waves over two millennia ago, both groups having spoken considerably different vernacular; South Estonian might be

456-772: A member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (then known as the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party) at the organisation's July 2003 London Congress. The party also applied for the membership of the Liberal International (LI) in 2001, but the LI decided to reject the party's application in August 2001, as Savisaar's conduct was adjudged to "not always conform to liberal principles". In 2001, Kreitzberg unsuccessfully ran for

532-571: A policy divergence on issues of European integration between the Centre Party and ALDE. The Estonian Centre Party has been described as a social-liberal , or left-conservative, party that is in favour of the social market economy , and it has been also described as populist. It is the main stronghold for Russian-speaking citizens. Its political position has been described as either centrist , centre-left , or left-wing , since it combines left-wing populist elements and social liberalism. This

608-524: A proposal of how to improve what they regard as Estonia's economic crisis. In the European Parliament elections of 2009 , the Centre Party gained the most votes and 2 out of 6 Estonian seats, which were filled by Siiri Oviir and Vilja Savisaar . In local elections of 2009, the party strengthened its absolute majority in the Tallinn city council. Despite their absolute majority, they formed

684-416: A special congress, party leader Jüri Ratas announced his intention to not run for leadership again. Following the announcement, he endorsed Tanel Kiik as his successor while Tallinn mayor Mihhail Kõlvart declared his candidacy for leadership. Pundits speculated the election to be the most important in the party's history, with Kiik being perceived as representing the liberal and Estonian-speaking wing of

760-734: Is based on central dialects, it has no vowel harmony either. In the standard language, the front vowels occur exclusively on the first or stressed syllable, although vowel harmony is still apparent in older texts. Typologically, Estonian represents a transitional form from an agglutinating language to a fusional language . The canonical word order is SVO (subject–verb–object), although often debated among linguists. In Estonian, nouns and pronouns do not have grammatical gender , but nouns and adjectives decline in fourteen cases: nominative , genitive , partitive , illative , inessive , elative , allative , adessive , ablative , translative , terminative , essive , abessive , and comitative , with

836-523: Is despite the fact that the party holds positions considered contrary to social liberalism on a number of issues. For example, the party suggests that Estonia should deliberate re-establishing criminal punishments for the possession of even small amounts of illegal substances, and the Centre Party's parliamentary faction did not agree on its stance in regards to same-sex marriage, which is traditionally supported by social liberals. Party leader Jüri Ratas opposes same-sex marriage, while his preferred successor in

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912-814: Is pronounced [æ], as in English mat . The vowels Ä, Ö and Ü are clearly separate phonemes and inherent in Estonian, although the letter shapes come from German. The letter õ denotes /ɤ/ , unrounded /o/ , or a close-mid back unrounded vowel . It is almost identical to the Bulgarian ъ /ɤ̞/ and the Vietnamese ơ , and is also used to transcribe the Russian ы . Additionally C , Q , W , X , and Y are used in writing foreign proper names . They do not occur in Estonian words , and are not officially part of

988-492: Is pronounced) and in the use of 'i' and 'j'. Where it is very impractical or impossible to type š and ž , they are replaced by sh and zh in some written texts, although this is considered incorrect. Otherwise, the h in sh represents a voiceless glottal fricative , as in Pasha ( pas-ha ); this also applies to some foreign names. Modern Estonian orthography is based on the "Newer orthography" created by Eduard Ahrens in

1064-757: The idamurre or eastern dialect on the northwestern shore of Lake Peipus . One of the pronunciation features of the Saaremaa dialect is the lack of the 'õ' vowel. A five-metre monument erected in 2020, marking the "border" between the vowels 'õ' and 'ö', humorously makes reference to this fact. South Estonian consists of the Tartu, Mulgi, Võro and Seto varieties. These are sometimes considered either variants of South Estonian or separate languages altogether. Also, Seto and Võro distinguish themselves from each other less by language and more by their culture and their respective Christian confession. Estonian employs

1140-613: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Estonian and English: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group The Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe ( ALDE Group ) was the liberal – centrist political group of the European Parliament from 2004 until 2019 when it merged into Renew Europe . ALDE was made up of MEPs from two European political parties ,

1216-539: The 2015 election , obtaining 24.8% of votes and electing 27 MPs. The party remained in opposition to the new government of Taavi Rõivas , which was supported by the Estonian Reform Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union. In Autumn 2016, Savisaar stepped down as party leader and Jüri Ratas was elected in his place. In November 2016, the Social Democratic Party and

1292-694: The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party and the European Democratic Party , which collectively form the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe . The ALDE Group traced its unofficial origin back to September 1952 and the first meeting of the Parliament's predecessor, the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community . Founded as an explicitly liberal group, it expanded its remit to cover

1368-512: The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party or the European Democratic Party . The Bureau was the main decision making body of the ALDE Group and is composed of the leaders of the delegations from each member state that elects ALDE MEPs. The Bureau oversaw the ALDE Group's main strategy and policies and was headed by a chair (referred to as the Leader ). The day-to-day running of

1444-1069: The European Parliament , one of whom sits in the Renew Europe group and the other of whom sits in the European Conservatives and Reformists group. In the European Committee of the Regions , the Estonian Center Party sits in the Renew Europe CoR group , with one alternate member for the 2020–2025 mandate. On 10 September 2023, Mihhail Kõlvart was elected party leader at a special party conference in Paide . He received 543 votes (51.91%), defeating Tanel Kiik who received 489 votes (46.75%). National groups: * observer *associate member **observer Estonian language Estonian belongs to

1520-634: The Finnic branch of the Uralic language family . Other Finnic languages include Finnish and some minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea and in northwestern Russia. Estonian is typically subclassified as a Southern Finnic language, and it is the second-most-spoken language among all the Finnic languages. Alongside Finnish, Hungarian , and Maltese , Estonian is one of the four official languages of

1596-712: The Germanic languages have very different origins and the vocabulary is considered quite different from that of the Indo-European family, one can identify many similar words in Estonian and English, for example. This is primarily because Estonian has borrowed nearly one-third of its vocabulary from Germanic languages, mainly from Low Saxon ( Middle Low German ) during the period of German rule , and High German (including standard German ). The percentage of Low Saxon and High German loanwords can be estimated at 22–25 percent, with Low Saxon making up about 15 percent. Prior to

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1672-749: The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party on 19 July 1994 to match the European political party of the same name . In 1999, the Group partnered with European People's Party–European Democrats (EPP-ED) group to form an informal coalition for the Fifth Parliament. This included supporting the EPP's candidate for President of the Parliament in 1999 and the ALDE candidate in 2002. This meant that

1748-581: The Latin script as the basis for its alphabet . The script adds the letters ä , ö , ü , and õ , plus the later additions š and ž . The letters c , q , w , x and y are limited to proper names of foreign origin, and f , z , š , and ž appear in loanwords and foreign names only. Ö and Ü are pronounced similarly to their equivalents in Swedish and German. Unlike in standard German but like Swedish (when followed by 'r') and Finnish, Ä

1824-536: The Proto-Finnic language , elision has occurred; thus, the actual case marker may be absent, but the stem is changed, cf. maja – majja and the Ostrobothnia dialect of Finnish maja – majahan . The verbal system has no distinct future tense (the present tense serves here) and features special forms to express an action performed by an undetermined subject (the "impersonal"). Although Estonian and

1900-549: The new elections in 2003 , in which the party won 28 seats. Though the Centre Party won the greatest per cent of votes, it was in opposition until March 2005 when Juhan Parts' government collapsed. In 2003, the majority of the party's assembly did not support Estonia's joining the European Union (EU). Savisaar did not express clearly his position. A number of Centre Party members exited the party in autumn 2004, mostly due to objections with Savisaar's autocratic tendencies and

1976-443: The "conservative camp", "conservative wing", or "conservative alliance", while many experts regard the party as having a notable liberal and conservative wing, highlighted by the 2023 leadership election. The party claims that its goal is the formation of a strong middle class in Estonia. The Centre Party declares itself as a "middle class liberal party"; however, against the backdrop of Estonia's economically liberal policies,

2052-485: The 1870s to the 1890s) tried to use formation ex nihilo ( Urschöpfung ); i.e. they created new words out of nothing. The most well-known reformer of Estonian, Johannes Aavik (1880–1973), used creations ex nihilo (cf. 'free constructions', Tauli 1977), along with other sources of lexical enrichment such as derivations, compositions and loanwords (often from Finnish; cf. Saareste and Raun 1965: 76). In Aavik's dictionary (1921) lists approximately 4000 words. About 40 of

2128-926: The 1930s. There are 9 vowels and 36 diphthongs , 28 of which are native to Estonian. All nine vowels can appear as the first component of a diphthong, but only /ɑ e i o u/ occur as the second component. A vowel characteristic of Estonian is the unrounded back vowel /ɤ/, which may be close-mid back , close back , or close-mid central . Word-initial b, d, g occur only in loanwords and some old loanwords are spelled with p, t, k instead of etymological b, d, g : pank 'bank'. Word-medially and word-finally, b, d, g represent short plosives /p, t, k/ (may be pronounced as partially voiced consonants), p, t, k represent half-long plosives /pː, tː, kː/, and pp, tt, kk represent overlong plosives /pːː, tːː, kːː/; for example: kabi /kɑpi/ 'hoof' — kapi /kɑpːi/ 'wardrobe [ gen sg ] — kappi /kɑpːːi/ 'wardrobe [ ptv sg ]'. Before and after b, p, d, t, g, k, s, h, f, š, z, ž ,

2204-524: The 19th century during the Estophile Enlightenment Period (1750–1840). The birth of native Estonian literature was during the period 1810–1820, when the patriotic and philosophical poems by Kristjan Jaak Peterson were published. Peterson, who was the first student to acknowledge his Estonian origin at the then German-language University of Dorpat , is commonly regarded as a herald of Estonian national literature and considered

2280-490: The 200 words created by Johannes Aavik allegedly ex nihilo are in common use today. Examples are * ese 'object', * kolp 'skull', * liibuma 'to cling', * naasma 'to return, come back', * nõme 'stupid, dull'. Many of the coinages that have been considered (often by Aavik himself) as words concocted ex nihilo could well have been influenced by foreign lexical items; for example, words from Russian , German , French , Finnish , English and Swedish . Aavik had

2356-455: The 2023 leadership election, Tanel Kiik , stated his support for it. Political scientist Martin Mölder labelled the party as left-conservative, adding that the party's voter base is "equally as conservative as Isamaa ". Former Prime Minister Andrus Ansip also pointed to the party's conservative voter base. The potential alliance of Isamaa, EKRE , and the Centre Party has often been labelled as

Estonian Centre Party - Misplaced Pages Continue

2432-483: The Centre Party cannot govern with EKRE's approach. On 5 April 2019, Raimond Kaljulaid announced his decision to quit the party, deciding to sit as an independent member of the Parliament. In January 2021, after the resignation of Jüri Ratas as Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas formed a Reform Party -led grand coalition government with the Estonian Centre Party. However, on 3 June 2022, Kallas dismissed

2508-463: The Centre Party has a reputation of having more left-leaning policies. In an Estonian Public Broadcasting program Foorum , Estonian Reform Party parliamentarian Remo Holsmer listed the ideologies of the other three political parties represented in the Riigikogu but could not name the ideological position of the Centre Party. Centre Party parliamentarian Kadri Simson then tried to clarify that

2584-564: The Centre Party. It managed to win 32 seats out of 63 in Tallinn City Council, having now an absolute majority in that municipality. One of the factors behind this success in Tallinn was probably the immense popularity of Centre Party among Russian speaking voters. The controversial contract of co-operation between the Estonian Centre Party and the Russia's dominant political party of power United Russia has probably contributed to

2660-617: The Chairman of the City Council of the capital city Tallinn. In 1996, Siiri Oviir ran for the presidency of Estonia . In the parliamentary elections of March 1999 , the Centre Party, whose main slogan was progressive income tax , gained 23.4% of votes (the first result) and 28 seats in the Riigikogu . Party members are active in its 26 branches – eight of them are active in Tallinn , 18 in towns and counties. The Centre Party became

2736-532: The EU, NATO and would be sending out messages of tolerance. Some key members and popular candidates of the party have been critical of the decision, with Raimond Kaljulaid leaving the board of the party in protest. Yana Toom , a member of the Centre Party and its representative in the European Parliament expressed criticism of the decision. Mihhail Kõlvart , popular among the Russian-speaking voters, has said

2812-603: The Estophile educated class admired the ancient culture of the Estonians and their era of freedom before the conquests by Danes and Germans in the 13th century. When the Republic of Estonia was established in 1918, Estonian became the official language of the newly independent country. Immediately after World War II , in 1945, over 97% of the then population of Estonia self-identified as native ethnic Estonians and spoke

2888-463: The European Union that are not Indo-European languages . In terms of linguistic morphology , Estonian is a predominantly agglutinative language . The loss of word-final sounds is extensive, and this has made its inflectional morphology markedly more fusional , especially with respect to noun and adjective inflection. The transitional form from an agglutinating to a fusional language is

2964-482: The Finnic languages date from the 13th century. The "Originates Livoniae" in the Livonian Chronicle of Henry contains Estonian place names, words and fragments of sentences. The earliest extant samples of connected (north) Estonian are the so-called Kullamaa prayers dating from 1524 and 1528. In 1525 the first book published in Estonian was printed. The book was a Lutheran manuscript, which never reached

3040-410: The Group secured its first President of the European Parliament since Simone Veil, when Pat Cox was elected to the post to serve the latter half of the Parliament's five-year term. This arrangement was discontinued after the 2009 election, when the EPP and the socialist S&D Group formed an informal Grand Coalition . On 13 July 2004, the Group approved a recommendation to unite with MEPs from

3116-635: The Group was officially founded as the Group of Liberals and Allies on 23 June 1953. As the Assembly grew into the Parliament, the French Gaullists split from the Group on 21 January 1965 and the Group started the process of changing its name to match the liberal/centrist traditions of the new member states, firstly to the Liberal and Democratic Group in 1976, then to the Liberal and Democratic Reformist Group on 13 December 1985, then to

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3192-439: The Group was performed by its secretariat, led by its Secretary-General. The senior staff of ALDE as of July 2012 were as follows: The chairs of ALDE and its predecessors from 1953 to 2019 are as follows: Along with the other political groups, ALDE has been analysed by academics on its positions regarding various issues . In short, it's a group of cohesive, gender-balanced centrist Euroneutrals that cooperate most closely with

3268-457: The People's Centre Party ( Rahvakeskerakond ) to differentiate from the smaller centre-right Rural Centre Party ( Maa-Keskerakond ). The party was a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe until 14 September 2024. In the parliamentary elections of March 1995 , the Centre Party was placed third with 14.2% of votes and 16 seats. It entered the coalition, Edgar Savisaar taking

3344-484: The Pro Patria Union withdrew from the government coalition and entered a no-confidence motion against the government, together with the Estonian Centre Party. On 9 November 2016, the Riigikogu approved the motion with a 63–28 vote and Rõivas was forced to resign; in a following coalition talk, the Centre Party, SDE and IRL formed a new coalition led by Center Party's chairman Jüri Ratas . The new government

3420-410: The alphabet. Including all the foreign letters, the alphabet consists of the following 32 letters: Although the Estonian orthography is generally guided by phonemic principles, with each grapheme corresponding to one phoneme , there are some historical and morphological deviations from this: for example preservation of the morpheme in declension of the word (writing b, g, d in places where p, k, t

3496-413: The case and number of the adjective always agreeing with that of the noun (except in the terminative, essive, abessive and comitative, where there is agreement only for the number, the adjective being in the genitive form). Thus the illative for kollane maja ("a yellow house") is kollasesse majja ("into a yellow house"), but the terminative is kollase majani ("as far as a yellow house"). With respect to

3572-543: The centrist political party at the European level called the European Democratic Party (EDP) founded by François Bayrou 's Union for French Democracy , the Labour Party of Lithuania and Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy of Italy. The Group accordingly became the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) on 20 July 2004, to match the eponymous transnational political alliance , although

3648-405: The decision have claimed that Ratas is willing to sacrifice his party's values, the confidence of his voters and the stability and reputation of the country to keep his position as prime minister. Ratas has countered that his first duty is to look for ways to get his party included in the government to be able to work in the benefit of his voters and that the coalition would continue to firmly support

3724-779: The different traditions of each new Member State as they acceded to the Union , progressively changing its name in the process. Its immediate predecessor was the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party Group (ELDR). The ALDE Group was the fourth-largest group in the Eighth European Parliament term, and previously participated in an informal coalition with the EPP during the Sixth Parliament (2004–2009). The pro-European platform of ALDE

3800-708: The elections to the European Parliament. Oviir joined the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group. The Centre Party participated in government with the Estonian Reform Party and the People's Union of Estonia from 12 April 2005 until a new government took office after the March 2007 elections . The Centre Party had five minister portfolios (Edgar Savisaar as Minister of Economy, also Minister of Social Affairs, Education, Culture and Interior). Local elections on 16 October 2005 were very successful to

3876-422: The end of the 20th century has brought the proportion of native Estonian-speakers in Estonia now back above 70%. Large parts of the first- and second-generation immigrants in Estonia have now adopted Estonian (over 50% as of the 2022 census). The Estonian dialects are divided into two groups – the northern and southern dialects, historically associated with the cities of Tallinn in the north and Tartu in

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3952-487: The following opinion polls. In August 2024, Jaak Madison , an MEP and former member of the Conservative People's Party of Estonia , joined the Centre Party. Madison rejected allegations that the party was pro-Russian and stated that he wished to reorient the party as a conservative people's party. On 14 September 2024 the party withdrew from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party , citing

4028-535: The founder of modern Estonian poetry. His birthday, March 14, is celebrated in Estonia as Mother Tongue Day. A fragment from Peterson's poem "Kuu" expresses the claim reestablishing the birthright of the Estonian language: In English: In the period from 1525 to 1917, 14,503 titles were published in Estonian; by comparison, between 1918 and 1940, 23,868 titles were published. In modern times A. H. Tammsaare , Jaan Kross , and Andrus Kivirähk are Estonia 's best-known and most translated writers. Estonians lead

4104-487: The ideology of the party is "Centre Party", meaning a unique ideology independent of other established ones. The party is often described as populist , and critics have accused its long-time leader Edgar Savisaar of authoritarianism until a new leader was elected in 2016. Historically, the party has been the most popular party among Russian-speaking citizens. In 2012, it was supported by up to 75% of ethnic non-Estonians.' The Estonian Center Party currently has two members of

4180-456: The language. When Estonia was invaded and reoccupied by the Soviet army in 1944, the status of Estonian effectively changed to one of the two official languages (Russian being the other one). Many immigrants from Russia entered Estonia under Soviet encouragement. In the 1970s, the pressure of bilingualism for Estonians was intensified. Although teaching Estonian to non-Estonians in local schools

4256-399: The latter widely considered a far-right party. Ratas had previously ruled out forming a coalition with EKRE during the election campaign because of its hostile views. The inclusion of EKRE in coalition talks after the elections was met with local and international criticism. In a poll conducted after the start of the coalition talks, the party of Jüri Ratas further lost support. The critics of

4332-534: The local elections of 20 October 2013, the Center Party and its leader Edgar Savisaar were successful, obtaining the absolute majority in the city of Tallinn with 53% of votes, winning 46 seats out of 79 (2 more than the 2009 results), considerably more than the second party, the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union , which received 19% of votes and 16 seats. The Estonian Centre Party obtained a good result in

4408-423: The party becoming seen as one specifically of the niche Russian minority concentrated in the capital Tallinn and Ida-Viru County . As a result, in the following months the previous party leader Jüri Ratas and several other party members defected to other political forces, leaving Centre Party with one third of its initial parliamentary representation (down to only 6 MPs) and with an increasingly weaker position in

4484-550: The party received 143,528 votes (26.1% of the total), an improvement of +0.7%. They took 29 seats, a gain of one seat compared to the 2003 elections, though due to the 2004 defections which had decreased their strength, they actually gained 10 seats. They are now the second largest party in Parliament and the largest opposition party. In 2008, the party criticised Andrus Ansip 's policies, that in Centre Party's opinion have contributed to Estonia's economic problems of recent times. On 16 June 2007, Edgar Savisaar and Jaan Õmblus published

4560-503: The party while Kõlvart was seen as the representation of the conservative and Russian-speaking wing. Kõlvart won the leadership election with 543 votes against Kiik's 489, being elected the third leader in the party's history. In September 2023, Kõlvart won the Centre Party's leadership election. His victory marked a significant change in the party's direction, choosing to focus more on its Russophone electoral base and shifting to socially conservative and economically syncretic positions, with

4636-664: The party's EU-sceptic stance, forming the Social Liberal group. Some of them joined the Social Democratic Party , others the Reform Party and others the People's Party. One of these MPs later rejoined the Centre Party. Since Estonia's accession to the EU, the party has largely revised its formerly EU-sceptic positions. In 2004, the Centre Party gained one member in the European Parliament – Siiri Oviir . The Centre Party gathered 17.5% share of votes on

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4712-468: The position of the Minister of Internal Affairs, and four other ministerial positions (Social Affairs, Economy, Education and Transportation & Communications). After the " tape scandal " (secret taping of talks with other politicians) in which Savisaar was involved, the party was forced to go to opposition. A new party was formed by those who were disappointed by their leader's behaviour. Savisaar became

4788-616: The presidency of Estonia. Savisaar was the Mayor of Tallinn , the capital of Estonia, from 2001 to fall 2004, when he was forced to step down after a vote of no confidence . He was replaced by Tõnis Palts of Res Publica . In January 2002, the Centre Party and the Estonian Reform Party formed a new governmental coalition where Centre Party got 8 ministerial seats (Minister of Defense, Education, Social Affairs, Finances, Economy & Communications, Interior, Agriculture and Minister of integration and national minorities). The coalition stayed until

4864-592: The reader and was destroyed immediately after publication. The first extant Estonian book is a bilingual German-Estonian translation of the Lutheran catechism by S.   Wanradt and J.   Koell dating to 1535, during the Protestant Reformation period. An Estonian grammar book to be used by priests was printed in German in 1637. The New Testament was translated into the variety of South Estonian called Võro in 1686 (northern Estonian, 1715). The two languages were united based on Northern Estonian by Anton thor Helle . Writings in Estonian became more significant in

4940-492: The second half of the 19th   century based on Finnish orthography. The "Older orthography" it replaced was created in the 17th   century by Bengt Gottfried Forselius and Johann Hornung based on standard German orthography. Earlier writing in Estonian had, by and large, used an ad hoc orthography based on Latin and Middle Low German orthography. Some influences of the standard German orthography – for example, writing 'W'/'w' instead of 'V'/'v' – persisted well into

5016-403: The seven ministers affiliated with the Centre Party, governing as a minority government until a new coalition without the Centre Party was formed on 8 July. In the 2023 parliamentary election , the Centre Party received 15.3% of the vote and 16 seats in the Riigikogu. The party remained in opposition. Following a donation from businessman Parvel Pruunsild that split the party's board and led to

5092-419: The sounds [p], [t], [k] are written as p, t, k , with some exceptions due to morphology or etymology. Representation of palatalised consonants is inconsistent, and they are not always indicated. ŋ is an allophone of /n/ before /k/. While peripheral Estonian dialects are characterized by various degrees of vowel harmony , central dialects have almost completely lost the feature. Since the standard language

5168-405: The south, in addition to a distinct kirderanniku dialect, Northeastern coastal Estonian . The northern group consists of the keskmurre or central dialect that is also the basis for the standard language, the läänemurre or western dialect, roughly corresponding to Lääne County and Pärnu County , the saarte murre (islands' dialect) of Saaremaa , Hiiumaa , Muhu and Kihnu , and

5244-434: The success in ethnic Russian electorate as well. The Centre Party formed a one-party administration in the City of Tallinn led by Jüri Ratas , a 27-year-old politician elected the Mayor of Tallinn in November 2005. He was replaced by Savisaar in April 2007. The Centre Party is also a member of coalitions in 15 other major towns of Estonia like Pärnu , Narva, Haapsalu and Tartu . In the 2007 Estonian parliamentary election ,

5320-435: The third-largest grouping in the Common Assembly was the Liberal grouping with 11 members. The Group of Liberals and Allies was officially founded on 23 June 1953. By mid-September 1953, it was again the third-largest Group with 10 members. ALDE was a coalition of liberal and centrist MEPs. It did not have formal subgroups, although the MEPs fell naturally into two informal subgroups, depending on whether they associated with

5396-566: The two European-level parties remained separate outside the European Parliament. The MEP Graham Watson of the British Liberal Democrats became the first chair of ALDE. In May 2019, speaking at a debate leading up to the 2019 European Parliament election , ALDE President Guy Verhofstadt announced that following the election, the group would form a new, centrist alliance with Emmanuel Macron's "Renaissance" list and be renamed as Renew Europe . The national parties that are members of ALDE are as follows: ALDE (2016–2019) In September 1952,

5472-514: The wave of new loanwords from English in the 20th and 21st centuries, historically, Swedish and Russian were also sources of borrowings but to a much lesser extent. In borrowings, often 'b' and 'p' are interchangeable, for example 'baggage' becomes 'pagas', 'lob' (to throw) becomes 'loopima'. The initial letter 's' before another consonant is often dropped, for example 'skool' becomes 'kool', 'stool' becomes 'tool'. Estonian language planners such as Ado Grenzstein (a journalist active in Estonia from

5548-464: The world in book ownership, owning on average 218 books per house, and 35% of Estonians owning 350 books or more (as of 2018). Writings in Estonian became significant only in the 19th century with the spread of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment , during the Estophile Enlightenment Period (1750–1840). Although Baltic Germans at large regarded the future of Estonians as being a fusion with themselves,

5624-477: Was formally compulsory, in practice, the teaching and learning of Estonian by Russian-speakers was often considered unnecessary by the Soviet authorities. In 1991, with the restoration of Estonia's independence , Estonian went back to being the only official language in Estonia. Since 2004, when Estonia joined the European Union, Estonian is also one of the (now 24) official languages of the EU . The return of former Soviet immigrants to their countries of origin at

5700-481: Was in support of free market economics and pushed for European integration and the European single market . On 12 June 2019, it was announced that the successor group in alliance with La République En Marche! would be named Renew Europe . The ALDE Group traced its unofficial ancestry back to the Liberal members present at the first meeting of the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (the Parliament's predecessor) on 10 September 1952, but

5776-405: Was sworn in on 23 November. In the 2019 parliamentary election , the Centre Party lost support while the opposition Estonian Reform Party gained support and won a plurality in election. After the election, the head of the Centre Party, Jüri Ratas turned down an offer by the Reform Party for coalition talks and entered into talks with Isamaa and Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE),

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