Politics and Tallinn2011 – Where Will It End?

The title of European Capital of Culture that Tallinn will share with the Finnish city of Turku in 2011 is starting to raise in the public scene for issues that have little to do with its original purposes.

Far from being a motive of pride for the Estonian capital, this project has in fact  been politicized and is bringing more problems than expected.

Some representatives of the Estonians Centre Party took control of the council of a foundation built ad hoc for managing and promoting the project and the move has raised suspicions that the whole project would be used as a tool of the Centre Party’s election campaign in next year’s parliamentary elections

And besides there is also a quite significant economical issue, as there has been so much variation in cost estimates of the project and also since it seems that the city will cut its support for the project to half of what was originally planned.

Other important fact is that the Culture Capital year coincides with the Parliamentary elections where Centre Party of Tallinn Mayor Edgar Savisaar and Reform Party of Prime Minister Andrus Ansip will be rivals.

The independent director of the Project Mikko Fritze stated that “I would like for the state and the city to work together on the Culture Capital project. Estonian society has become overly politicized, and they have not managed to agree. I would fervently like for the Culture Capital to be realized”, referring to the existing political controversy on the subject.