The city council's finance committee on Monday came out in support of the proposal, though SDE, Isamaa and Eesti 200 members of the committee abstained from that vote anyway.

Tallinn City Council Reform Party faction chair Mati Raidma said that since abolishing the fee also requires changing the council's relevant regulation, the party has initiated this as well, to go ahead with scrapping the fee, currently at €50 per month per child.

Reform's draft amendment to this regulation states: "if the registered place of residence of the child and their parent(s) is the City of Tallinn, the parent shall be exempt from paying the kindergarten fee."

According to Raidma, abolishing the kindergarten fee would impact the city budget by €2.8 million in 2025 and approximately €10 million per year from 2026 onward – approximately the same figures (€3 million and €9 million respectively) referenced by Mayor of Tallinn Jevgeni Ossinovski (SDE).

Raidma said the Reform Party has proposed covering the cost by reducing tree planting and cutting permanent city expenditures and bureaucracy.

The city council is set to discuss the supplementary budget, which Reform wants to enter the kindergarten fee abolition into, today, Thursday.

The issue is the most visible in a current split in Tallinn city government between Reform on one side, and Isamaa, the Social Democrats (SDE) and Eesti 200.

Tallinn Deputy Mayor Pärtel-Peeter Pere had told ERR Wednesday that his party could "reluctantly" wait to scrap kindergarten fees next month.

He also said that the matter needed resolving sooner rather than being punted further down the road, calling it a matter of trust.

He rejected claims, since the Center Party also called for the same policy at the same time as Reform did, last Monday, June 2, that Reform was angling for an alliance with Center in Tallinn even before this October's local elections.

"We are not going to break this up intentionally or unintentionally," he said.

He also expressed criticism of Ossinovski, saying: "We are not satisfied with the situation that has arisen, we are not satisfied with how the mayor has handled our party's wishes in this coalition," Pere continued.

Pere also rejected claims of electioneering, eg. that the policy is a sweetener for potential votes come October.

Eesti 200's Tallinn deputy mayor, Aleksei Jašin, who holds responsibility for education in Tallinn, said Wednesday the policy from Reform had come almost as a "hand grenade tossed into a room"

The abolition of kindergarten fees in early education is not among the top concerns in the capital, when set against a shortage of places, low wages particularly to classroom assistants, and a lack of support services, are the main issues, Jašin added.

Other issues which need resolving in this area, Jašin said, include people registering their address in Tallinn when they live elsewhere, simply to obtain kindergarten spot – which they then don't use.

The Reform-Eesti 200-SDE-Isamaa city government has been in office since April 2024.

ERR News has this explainer on the current Tallinn coalition rift.

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