Kaja Kallas

Kallas's paternal great-grandfather lawyer Eduard Alver (1886–1939) was the commander of the Estonian Defence League during the Estonian War of Independence who also served as the head of the Estonian Police and the Estonian Internal Security Service.

During the Soviet June deportation of 1941, Kallas' mother Kirsti, six months old at the time, was deported to Siberia with her mother and grandmother.

They were allowed to return to Estonia ten years later.

Apart from Estonian, Kallas patrilineally also has distant Latvian and Baltic German ancestry, as discovered by investigative journalists researching her father's ancestry shortly after his premiership.

Kaja Kallas (born 18 June 1977) is an Estonian politician and the current prime minister of Estonia since 2021, the first woman to serve in the role.

Kaja Kallas was born in Tallinn on 18 June 1977.

Kallas graduated from the University of Tartu in 1999 with a bachelor's degree in law.

She lived in France and Finland briefly while training in European law.

Kallas became a member of the Estonian Bar Association in 1999, and an attorney-at-law in 2002.

She became a partner in law firm Luiga Mody Hääl Borenius and Tark & Co, and worked as an executive coach in the Estonian Business School.

She is also a member of the European Antitrust Alliance.

Her father, Siim Kallas, served as prime minister of Estonia from 2002–2003, and as a European Commissioner from 2004–2014.

From 2007, she attended the Estonian Business School, earning an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) in 2010.

In 2010, Kallas joined the Estonian Reform Party.

In 2011, she was placed on inactive status as a member of the Estonian Bar Association.

In the 2011 parliamentary elections she won a seat in the Riigikogu (for the Harju County and Rapla County constituency) receiving 7,157 votes.

She was a member of the 12th Parliament of Estonia and chaired the Economic Affairs Committee from 2011 to 2014.

Kallas was a member of the European Parliament in 2014–2018, representing the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

Before her election to Riigikogu, she was a lawyer specialising in European competition law.

In the 2014 European Parliament election in Estonia, Kallas received 21,498 votes.

In the European Parliament, Kallas served on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and was a substitute for the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection.

She was a vice-chair of the Delegation to the EU–Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee as well as a member of the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly and Delegation for relations with the United States.

In addition to her committee assignments, Kallas was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) Intergroup on the Digital Agenda, and was also a vice-chair of the Youth Intergroup.

During her period in Parliament, Kallas worked on the Digital Single Market strategy, energy, and consumer policies, and relations with Ukraine.

In particular, she defended the rights of small and medium-sized enterprises, maintaining that borders in the digital world hinder the emergence of innovative companies.

She is a proponent of innovation and frequently emphasises that regulations cannot and must not hinder the technological revolution.

Kallas served as rapporteur for six reports: opinion on the ePrivacy Regulation, civil law rules on robotics, on the Annual report on EU Competition Policy, and on Delivering a New Deal for Energy Consumers, legislation on Custom infringements and sanctions, and the own-initiative report on the Digital Single Market.

During her time in Parliament, she was also nominated as a European Young Leader (EYL40).

At the end of her term, she was cited by Politico as one of the 40 most influential MEPs, and one of the most powerful women in Brussels, who was highlighted for her understanding of technological issues.

On 13 December 2017, the Reform Party leader Hanno Pevkur announced that he would no longer run for the party leadership in January 2018, and suggested that Kallas should run instead.

After considering the offer, Kallas announced on 15 December 2017 that she would accept the invitation to run in the leadership election.

The leader of the Reform Party since 2018, she was a member of parliament (Riigikogu) in 2011–2014, and 2019–2021.

In November 2018, Kallas published her memoir MEP: 4 aastat Euroopa Parlamendis (MEP: Four Years in the European Parliament), in which she described her life and work in Brussels from 2014 to 2018.

Kallas won the leadership election held on 14 April 2018 and became the first female leader of a major political party in Estonia.

In the 2019 Estonian parliamentary election on 3 March, the Reform Party led by Kallas received about 29% of the vote, with the ruling Estonian Centre Party taking 23%.

The Centre Party managed to form Jüri Ratas' second cabinet with the conservative Isamaa party and the far-right EKRE, leaving the Reform Party out of power.

On 14 November 2020, Kallas was re-elected as leader of the Reform Party at a Reform Party Assembly.

On 25 January 2021, after the fall of the Centre Party led cabinet with conservative parties, Kaja Kallas's first cabinet, a coalition with the Centre Party, was formed.

In doing so, she became the first female prime minister in Estonia's history.

During the latter half of 2021, the global energy crisis disrupted the Estonian economy; businesses were forced to temporarily shut down, while the public requested government aid to pay for the high electricity and heating prices.