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The President pointed out that in his Independence Day speech a year and a half ago he had noted that he would assess the results of the work done by the Government and the Parliament on the basis of whether Estonia would be able to meet the Maastricht criteria necessary for adopting the euro and whether Estonia would become a member of the euro area in the beginning of 2011.

“That was the criterion that was to indicate to others, but most of all to ourselves whether we had done enough and at the right time,” said Ilves.

The head of State praised the sense of responsibility of all Riigikogu factions, in particular those of opposition parties for sparing Estonia from futile extra tensions in domestic politics and ugly arguments in issues that do not concern partisanship but statesmanship.

“Estonia’s transition to the euro designates a completely new phase in Estonia’s domestic and foreign policies,” emphasised the President. “Estonia's transition period is over and thus pretexts and excuses founded on our difficult past no longer apply,” he added.

Ilves remarked that after the accession to the euro area, Estonia will have to articulate new objectives for itself and debate them together during the upcoming elections campaigns. “Who do we want to be as a society and as a State? Whom to become and where to aspire? What is our ultimate objective? And the main issue – will the new phase in the development require us to make changes in our mindset and our way of acting?” said Ilves, listing the questions facing Estonia.