In early February, a scandal erupted over the unity of Estonia's foreign policy after President Alar Karis gave interviews to international media outlets with messages that Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna did not approve of. Karis was criticized for stepping beyond the traditional representative role of the head of state. However, presidents of the Republic of Estonia have stood out for independent action before.

Speaking of headstrong presidents, one must of course begin with Estonia's first president after the restoration of independence, Lennart Meri, whose moves overshadow nearly all of his successors. Meri's most notable foreign policy achievement was the July Accords he signed in Moscow in 1994 with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, which led to the withdrawal of Russian troops from Estonia.

Meri reached that outcome without involving the Estonian government, even though the constitution grants the president only a representative role. Prime Minister Mart Laar simply had to go along with the decision.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who became Estonia's foreign minister two years later, recalls that this was not the only time President Meri diverged from government policy. For example, during a meeting with Finland's foreign minister Tarja Halonen, who later also became president, the two discussed pursuing visa-free travel.

"We had a meeting with Lennart at Kadriorg and I raised the issue of visa liberalization. And Lennart then told Foreign Minister Halonen: don't listen to him. That we didn't need it. That was completely at odds with the state's, the government's and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' policy. I was fairly upset about it," Ilves said.

More than 30 years later, those who shaped foreign policy under Lennart Meri still remember how extravagant the head of state was.

"He was, after all, essentially the first president following the restoration of independence. He himself had to learn and, in a sense, invent the role. His self-confidence, I think, stemmed above all from himself, from his own personality: from his erudition, his very clearly formed convictions and values and his language skills," said Member of the European Parliament Urmas Paet, who served as foreign minister from 2005 to 2014.

During the presidency of Arnold Rüütel, the tone was considerably calmer. Urmas Paet, who was foreign minister in the final years of Rüütel's term, does not recall major friction. Paet credits Rüütel in part with Estonia's accession to NATO and the European Union.

"In that respect, the president's role in persuading skeptics within Estonian society that these steps — especially joining the European Union — were necessary was certainly very important. At that moment, he clearly chose a position. That cannot be overestimated," Paet said.

During Ilves' presidency, cooperation between the president and the government became closer than ever before. Ilves' strong interest and background in foreign policy made him more of a driving force than a mere executor of government decisions.

"I never once had any fear or sense that he would do something that needed to be cleaned up afterward. On the contrary, in foreign policy terms, I had complete confidence in him," Paet recalled.

According to Ilves, it was, in a sense, a back-and-forth dynamic. "From time to time, I pushed the government to do a bit more, but the government would say, listen, maybe we shouldn't do this right now. There were disagreements. It wasn't as if everything was perfectly harmonious. But it's not good if different paths are taken, especially in public, so we tried to talk things through among ourselves — particularly as a small country and everyone looking for conflict wherever they can find it," Ilves said.

Still, Ilves made his share of independent decisions, recalls journalist Argo Ideon, who has written a book about the president.

"One example was his speech in Prague in 2007 where Ilves said that Russia should not be a member of the G8 and should not be in the Council of Europe. In some ways, it was prophetic, because today Russia is not in the G8 and we have the G7. But at the time, it was entirely outside Estonia's official foreign policy line and Estonian diplomats then had to explain that this was part of a broader discussion presenting different ideas, not Estonia's official position," Ideon said.

One of the most surprising figures in foreign policy was President Kersti Kaljulaid who had extensive international experience at the European Court of Auditors but no prior political career.

"In my view, she very quickly developed a diplomatic style. We can count as her achievement the fact that Estonia was a member of the United Nations Security Council for a period," Ideon said.

During her term, Kaljulaid made an unexpected solo move when she met Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow in 2019. It is likely that then-Foreign Minister Sven Mikser was not aware of the plan; he remains tight-lipped about the visit to this day.

"On rare occasions, a president may try to go solo, but generally the president represents Estonia in foreign policy as agreed at the government level," Mikser said.

Practice thus shows that presidents tend to interpret their representative role according to their own character. The expectation that has surfaced recently — that Estonia's head of state should be more obedient in foreign affairs — does not hold up, policymakers say.

"It is usually more on the government's head. If there is a desire for a more foreign-policy-oriented president, it reflects that perhaps those who should be conducting foreign policy at the government level — whether the prime minister or the foreign minister — are not fully meeting the expectations placed on them," Mikser said.

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