Demands of Estonian farmers to allow Ukrainian labor migrants to enter the country to work in the fields were skeptical in the government.
It is reported by the First Business Channel.
According to media reports, this summer Estonian farmers faced a very untimely phenomenon. Strawberry ripening began earlier than usual. Before the harvest, Ukrainians were engaged here. As seasonal workers, they came to Estonia, hoping to earn more than in Ukraine. At the same time, they were quite cheap labor for Estonian farmers. The coronavirus pandemic ruined mutually beneficial cooperation, and earlier strawberry ripening forced agrarians to turn to the Estonian government.
Farmers demanded to remove restrictions on entry into the country for migrant workers, because their harvest is literally rotting in the fields due to the lack of people who want to work in the field. Although this practice has already been tried in other European countries, the Estonian Ministry of the Interior has been extremely skeptical about the appeals of farmers.
The department drew attention to the fact that now there are too many Ukrainians in the Baltic republic. Using a short-term or long-term visa, about 50 thousand migrants settled in Estonia.
“If we do not change anything, then ten years later there will be conditional Tallinn, completely consisting of citizens of Ukraine,” the ministry said.