This lack of infrastructure comes at a time when the changing security situation has made defense a burgeoning sector, with firms wanting to produce explosives and a defense industry park planned for Pärnu County.

The Estonian Defense Forces (EDF) has for several years been sourcing its anti-personnel mines from an Estonian company, though the mines are still assembled abroad. In this context, Koit Herodes, head of the University of Tartu's testing facility, said such a lab would be costly, meaning nobody would build one on a whim.

As to what extent a laboratory would pay for itself if defense firms were awarded long-term state contracts, Herodes said this would be "Hard to say. I can't really comment like that. State support would almost certainly be needed."

Herodes also added that one business plans to produce a missile propellant, but was unable to find facilities in Estonia where this could be tested. "I couldn't find them in Estonia. But I provided contact details for three foreign laboratories. One was in Sweden, one in the Czech Republic, and one was in Poland. Since our laboratory carried out similar analyses seven or eight years ago, we already had prior knowledge and contacts with those labs," Herodes said.

In any case, Estonian defense industry companies have to comply with the regulations required for handling explosives or pyrotechnic devices, even though some of the necessary operations cannot be performed in Estonia at all.

Firms which do already operate with explosives have had to conduct the necessary tests abroad. Of the two defense industry businesses "Aktuaalne kaamera" spoke to, one of them completed the necessary preliminary work in a foreign lab to determine its hazard classes, while the other is preparing to do so.

In order to produce explosive materials in Estonia, a handling permit, a suitable site, and insurance are required. Furthermore, the material to be handled must be assigned a hazard class, one of the defense industry businesspeople told "Aktuaalne kaamera." This raises the question of where this would be done if test blasting is required first.

Lauri Kütt, head of the technical department at the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA), said that this needed "A specific location — that also depends on the product itself, depends on which test needs to be carried out; in that respect we approach it case-by-case. However, if you lack the know-how to carry out those experiments and you don't have the competence yourself, it is always possible to involve other parties."

Explosives are also used in mining and other industrial applications.

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