Andrus Ansip – Marathon man

Estonia’s prime minister is showing other European leaders how it should be done.

Pretend, for a moment, that you rule a small state that, by virtue of its totalitarian past, is underdeveloped and racked by poverty, but, thanks to its youthfulness, is ambitious and restless. You are sailing along and then the world economy trembles, and the seismic ripples throw you off kilter. Your budget becomes skewed, tens of thousands of people are losing their jobs, the golden goal of joining the eurozone is vanishing, and your ministers are not doing what you ask of them. What should you do?

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For a seemingly ideal solution, turn to Andrus Ansip, Estonia’s prime minister, who over the past year has pulled off a political miracle. Estonia’s troubles accelerated last year after the real-estate bubble burst and banks entered rigor mortis. Economic activity declined nearly 10% in the fourth quarter of 2008 – the steepest fall in 14 years – and the annual forecast was for a paralysing 12% decline.

The onus was on Ansip to right the sinking ship. A burgeoning budget deficit required wholesale slashing, yet the person Ansip, a conservative, relied on most – his finance minister, Ivari Padar – had grown feckless and distracted. Padar was top of the Social Democrats’ list for the European Parliament election and, detractors claimed, he was more worried about getting a seat in Brussels than keeping his ministerial post in Tallinn. The tension between the two men erupted during a press conference, and they began bickering in front of astonished journalists.

For the usually unflappable Ansip, it was the last straw. He fired Padar and two other ministers (thereby losing his majority in the parliament), took much of Padar’s work on himself and drafted drastic cuts in spending. In the end, the gamble paid off: the government held firm, quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.6% in the last three months of 2009 (the best result in the EU, says Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistical office), and everything suggests Ansip will become the first Estonian prime minister to serve a full four-year term.

Better still, Estonia, which since 2002 posted budget surpluses, slashed its deficit and, judged purely by the Maastricht criteria, is set for eurozone membership next January. A decision is expected this summer. At a time when the euro is languishing, Estonian fiscal policy – the lowest government debt per GDP in the EU (7.2%), as well as the third smallest deficit in 2009 (1.7%) – has become something of a guidepost for less disciplined European countries (there is no shortage of them).

Much of the credit should go to Ansip. Born, raised and educated in Tartu, a quintessential university town, Ansip abandoned organic chemistry in the first years of Estonian independence, entering business and banking. With his prodigious memory for numbers and a scientist’s skill at hair-splitting analysis, he must have felt at home. In English (his other foreign languages are Russian and German), Ansip rattles off statistics like a talking almanac: Estonia’s reserves currently amount to 11.7% of GDP; 47% of the population trusts the government (the eighth best figure in the EU); 39% of the elderly live in risk of poverty (better only than Latvia and Cyprus).

In 1998, he was elected mayor of Tartu, a post that helped him ascend the ranks of the centre-right Reform Party. In 2004, he moved to Tallinn after being appointed economy minister (he spends his weekends in Tartu with his wife Anu, a gynaecologist, and the youngest of their three daughters). In April 2005, he became head of government, a position he held onto after an election victory in March 2007. In the immediate aftermath of that victory the former Soviet Communist Party member controversially relocated a Soviet war memorial from central Tallinn. So this month marks Ansip’s five-year anniversary in the job, making him the longest-serving prime minister in the Baltics – no easy feat in a region where governments change about every 18 months.

Feats of endurance seem second nature to Ansip. In fact, the 53-year-old may be the fittest leader in Europe. “I don’t want to talk about my hobbies in public, because Estonians might think their prime minister a stupid athlete,” he told European Voice. Pressed, however, he said he has taken part in six cross-country skiing marathons this year. Last year, he roller-bladed a total of 2,600 kilometres and, one day last year, cycled the 200km from Tallinn from Tartu in six hours.

Curriculum Vitae

1956: Born, Tartu 

1979: Degree in organic chemistry, Tartu State University
1979-81: Senior organic chemistry engineer, Tartu State University
1981-83: Military service
1983-87: Senior medical-laboratory engineer, Tartu State University
1992: Degree in business management, York University, Toronto
1993-94: Chief executive of real-estate company Rondam
1993-95: Board member of Rahvapank (people’s bank)
1994-96: Senior regional posts in Sotsiaalpaak (Estonian social bank)
1994-98: Chairman of Radio Tartu
1995-96: Chairman of Livonia Privatisation Investment Fund
1995-96: Chairman of Fondijuhtide investment fund
1998-2004: Mayor ot Tartu
2004-05: Minister of economic affairs and communications
2005-: Prime minister

He is clearly a man of unusual mettle. But when asked how he pulled Estonia out of recession, he credits Estonians themselves, for accepting the austerity measures. “I think it’s because the influence of Sweden and Finland is quite strong on our public opinion,” he said. When faced with a crisis, Estonians are ready to give their leaders a chance to make things better, he explained (Latvians and Lithuanians voted for a change in leadership).

Personality has played a role in Ansip’s staying power. “Andrus is, in a certain way, a take-it-or-leave-it type of person. He usually doesn’t have a secondary motive,” says Igor Grazin, a party colleague and member of parliament. “Even people who don’t like him generally support him, or at least respect him.”

Critics, particularly from the centre-left Centre Party, accuse Ansip of being cold-hearted and ruthless, but Grazin, a childhood acquaintance, claims nothing could be further from the truth. Compassion is Ansip’s predominant virtue, he insists, pointing to the government’s refusal during the crisis to heed calls to cut pensions. “It’s so easy to destroy social cohesion,” Ansip said. “Some politicians asked for pension cuts last year, but we didn’t do that because it wouldn’t have been fair.”

Perhaps Ansip’s real stroke of genius was to have the foresight to save in the good years. He twisted the arms of his centre-right partners to get them to only pass budgets with surpluses, with the additional revenue set aside. In 2007 the surplus was nearly 3% of GDP. “It wasn’t easy to collect those reserves,” Ansip says. “So-called experts said it was a waste of taxpayers’ money, that inflation was eating up the reserves.” In retrospect, he jokingly chides himself: “I’m guilty anyway because I didn’t collect enough reserves.”

Still, he has savings to spread around. When neighbouring Latvia’s economy belly-flopped in 2008, Estonia, much to everyone’s surprise, provided emergency bail-out funds. Ansip’s government pledged €100 million – leaving no doubt which Baltic house was best maintained – and is prepared to extend the credit.

What is next for Estonia’s marathon man? More milestones on the same path. Ansip has his eye on the March 2011 parliamentary election, and with the Reform Party leading – with a 35% approval rating – he has a good chance of setting a record for long service that may remain in Estonia’s history books for generations.