The Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice wish to increase the penalty unit, which has remained unchanged since 2011. While the penalty unit has been four euros for the last couple of decades, a draft bill prepared by the Ministry of Justice would raise the unit to €8.

Justice Minister Kalle Laanet (Reform) mentioned that the topic of raising the fine rates was brought to his attention by Minister of the Interior Lauri Läänemets (SDE).

"We agreed that the Ministry of the Interior would provide us with data, based on which we would analyze the situation to see how we can better ensure traffic safety, especially when it comes to traffic violations," he said.

"I would have linked it (the unit) to some index, so that if certain changes occur in society, whether regarding average wage or whatever the index might be linked to, then the fines would adjust accordingly. But we have not reached an agreement on this matter, and currently, the draft bill is going through the coordination process in a form that doubles (the unit)," he added.

Under current law, a fine of three fine units can be imposed for misdemeanors, meaning the minimum fine is €12. According to Laanet, the draft bill will lower the minimum limit to one penalty unit, effectively reducing the minimum amount. The maximum fine limit will remain unchanged.

The rate for automatic traffic fines will also be increased: currently, exceeding the speed limit by one km/h equals a five-euro fine, but under the draft bill, this rate will rise to seven euros. Due to this change, there is also a plan to increase the maximum allowable warning fine rate in the written warning procedure under the Code of Misdemeanor Procedure by approximately 1.4 times, from €300 to €420. The last time this maximum rate was increased was in March 2022, from €190 to €300, which represented a 1.6 times increase.

In abridged procedure, the maximum applicable fine will be increased to €160.

Laanet mentioned two main reasons for raising the fine rates. "One important goal is as a preventative measure, so that people, knowing how much can be imposed for an offense in terms of misdemeanors, would expect that they would not commit the violation. The other aspect is certainly that the cost of processing legal violations has also increased, so why should the taxpayer bear the cost? Perhaps those who commit the violations should contribute more," he stated.

Laanet also noted that the effect of increasing fine rates, according to practices in other countries, lasts about six months.

"People get used to behaving or living in certain situations, or even with certain punishments. In that sense, we definitely need to think more about a personalized approach to how we influence people towards lawful behavior, not just by raising fines," he said.

Arguments against the effectiveness of raising fines include the fact that while there were a couple of hundred traffic deaths per year in Estonia in the early 2000s, this number has now decreased nearly fourfold, without significant increases in fine rates.

Laanet attributed this improvement to other factors as well, such as safer cars, more quality roads and better road lighting.

"Fines are definitely not the only deterrent; rather, they are one of the few, and all other preventive measures are, in my opinion, much more effective. But since the fines have, in a sense, fallen behind the times in terms of their amounts, I also believe that this proposal from the Ministry of the Interior is timely," Laanet commented.

Under the proposed bill, the maximum fine for misdemeanors will increase from the current maximum of €1,200 to €2,400. However, an exception will be made for minor offenders – when calculating fines for them, it will be necessary to base them on half the size of the fine stipulated in the respective law. For example, if the law stipulates a maximum allowed punishment of a fine of up to 300 fine units, then for a minor, it is possible to impose a fine for such a violation of up to 150 units.

For fare evasion in public transport, the penalty is intended to be minimally changed. To achieve this, the Public Transport Act will limit the size of the fine to five fine units.

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