Estonia's Kallas calls on partners to increase defence spending

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has called on her country's partners in Europe and NATO to spend more money on defence in response to Russia's war against in Ukraine.

Estonia invests more than 3.2% of its gross domestic product in defence, Kallas said in Berlin on Tuesday. Partner countries should do the same, or risk provoking Russia by their weakness.

"If they think that they can win, they will take a step," Kallas said. "If they understand that we are strong enough they will not take the step towards NATO. And that's why we have to make this collective effort really together."

She said it was difficult to explain to people in countries that had much better neighbours than Estonia why such expenditure was necessary, and that people do not really feel that this is necessary at the moment. "But if you feel it's necessary, it's going to be too late. That's the problem with defence."

In response to a question about calls to halt the war in Ukraine, Kallas quoted former German chancellor Konrad Adenauer: "In a world full of violence, pacifism would be suicide - to put it very simply."

Kallas was then to be honoured with the Walther Rathenau Prize for her services to European understanding and her clear stance on the Russian war against in Ukraine.

The prize honours people for an outstanding life's work in foreign policy, with previous winners including Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the former German foreign minister, former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and former German chancellor Angela Merkel.

Rathenau was foreign minister of Germany's Weimar Republic after WW I. The liberal Jewish politician was shot dead by right-wing extremists in Berlin's Grunewald forest on his way to the Foreign Office in 1922.