Estonia

State energy company Eesti Energia plans to cut up to 10% of its workforce, a decision that has proved difficult for the public to accept given the company is currently profitable. The cuts arrive as electricity prices are already at winter levels; if a deep freeze arrives, the government may find that a leaner utility company is not necessarily a more popular one.

The domestic agenda is otherwise preoccupied with long-standing anomalies. A family business has reportedly operated out of illegal buildings for 25 years with the apparent blessing of both city and state, while in the capital, the zoo director and his staff are in a standoff over whether the animals should be moved out or the director should. Meanwhile, Hanno Pevkur, the defense minister, has announced he will leave politics.

A sense of closure reached one of the country's darker legal chapters as the sons of Peeter Kaares paid 77,000 euros to victims of a slavery case. Elsewhere, police have intercepted a group of people smugglers, and residents in Läänemaa are protesting a proposed military factory, proving that while the nation supports the defense budget, they would prefer it were spent in the next village over.