True blue ambassadors

MP Marko Mihkelson has been blogging about his trip to Australia as part of a delegation led by Riigikogu chair Ene Ergma. It has convinced him that the Estonian government should seriously consider opening an embassy in Canberra (yes, it's the capital). Here is what he says.

Here and there in Estonia you hear dissenting voices saying: why should we bother building an embassy that far away and waste the state's money? It's obvious that the country's options are pretty limited when it comes to new embassies, so every decision to do so needs to be weighed up very carefully.

But if we are to establish embassies anywhere [other than the new ones planned for Egypt, Israel and India over the next couple of years], our first choice should be Australia. There are a number of reasons for this. For a start, Australia is one of our closest allies. Secondly, it is home to the fifth-largest Estonian population in the world and the only community of its size not to be represented by an embassy. Thirdly, Australia is the perfect gateway to south-east Asia and the Pacific. Fourthly, there is huge growth potential in bilateral trade of goods and knowledge. And fifthly, of the 27 member states of the European Union, 23 have embassies in Canberra. Those that don't are Luxembourg and the three Baltic States. Which says a lot.

Other factors which Mihkelson mentions, albeit not necessarily as part of his argument for setting up an embassy, are the fact that Estonia's ambassador to Australia is currently based in Japan (and I thought having to get my passport renewed through Stockholm was a pain in the arse!) and the revelation that the first Estonians in fact reached Terra Australis as long ago as 1696 - as part of the crew of a Dutch expedition led by Willem de Vlamingh. (I should probably point out to Sandy Casar, who pondered about this amazing discovery on Mihkelson's blog, that the likelihood of the three men in question 'staying on to live in Australia' is not very high.)

Mihkelson, Ergma and a few other MPs are ostensibly in Australia on an official visit to Sydney and Canberra, meeting parliamentary delegates, federal representatives and local Estonian residents and associations, but undoubtedly also living it up if our Marko's blog is anything to go by.

PS Can I work in the Australian embassy if one is ever opened here in Tallinn?

http://markomihkelson.blogspot.com/