Prime Minister Ansip participates in Northern Future Forum

The heads of government of Sweden, Great Britain, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania took part in the summit and it was a continuation of a similar type of meeting that took place one year ago in London.

The organizer of this year’s meeting, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said in his welcoming remarks that besides geographic location, all of these countries were united by faith in enterprise, innovation and development and cooperation with the goal of developing the single market.

Two topics were focused on at the forum: first of all, how to encourage women to go into business or hold management positions, and how to keep the elderly on the job market longer. Roundtable discussions were held on these topics, attended by head of government as well as experts selected from each country.

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said at the forum that even though Estonia has not applied special measures for increasing women’s employment and enterprise, women’s employment is higher than average in the European Union, and Estonian women themselves are active.

“The most important is a general supportive attitude and lack of discrimination,” said Ansip.

The Prime Minister said that good opportunities of integrating work with family life and women’s good education level were very favourable factors. He said he considered the establishment of the parental benefit to be successful.

Among the Estonian experts who shared their views and experiences on the topic of women’s employment and enterprisingness were director of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra Kadri Tali, ecoconscious fashion designer Reet Aus and the “virtual gardener” Annika Goroško, winner of the young entrepreneur competition Ajujaht.

Prime Minister Ansip said employment rate among the elderly was high as well in Estonia. He said that employment among pension-age people exceeded the European Union average twofold.

“One of the primary measures that support employment among pension-age people is the principle that pensions will not decrease for working people,“ said Ansip in accounting for the reasons for employment. “This motivates older people of retirement age not to leave the job market. It is important for the elderly to know that they are needed.”

The prime minister also stressed how important it was for the elderly to receive constant retraining to allow them to keep up with society’s development. One example is computer and IT literacy.

An expert who took part at the roundtable, Ants Sild of Baltic Computer Systems, introduced two successful IT training projects, where seniors were one primary target group. Tallinn University of Technology emeritus professor and Tallinn’s open university for the elderly Kolmanda Nooruse Rahvaülikool director Valdek Mikkal also took part in the Estonian conversation circle.