Pensionikeskus (16.04.2020) From 1 July 2020 to 31 August 2021, the state will suspend the employer contributions to the second-pillar funded pension from social tax (4% of salary) . In addition, upon request, employee contributions (2%) can be suspended from December 1, 2020, through August 31, 2021.

To build Estonia’s digital society, it was not feasible to allow each government agency to ask for and store the user’s data. Such data duplication would make these agencies more susceptible to coordinated cyber attacks, as well as make it difficult to keep an individual’s information up-to-date. The solution to this was Estonia’s adoption of the “once-only principle,” whereby the user’s data is effectively divided up amongst the different agencies. This means information such as the user’s address can only be asked for and stored by one authority, in this case the population registry.

X-ROAD® DATA EXCHANGE LAYER

X-Road is a free and open-source data exchange layer solution that enables organizations to exchange information securely over the Internet. X-Road is released under the MIT open source license and is available free of charge.

The basic idea of X-Road is that information systems do not exchange data directly with each other. Instead, information systems are connected through additional, standardized access points (Security Server) that implement the same technical specifications and therefore, can communicate with each other.

tootukassa.ee (23.03.2020)

Temporary subsidies will be paid to those employees whose employers are significantly impacted by the current extraordinary circumstances. The subsidy will grant an income for the employees and help the employers to surpass temporary difficulties without having to lay off their staff or call bankruptcy. The subsidy is paid, when an employer is in a situation where they comply with at least two of the following terms:

baltictimes (03.01.2019) The Occupational Health and Safety Act has been amended as of January 1 and several new regulations have entered into force in Estonia as a result, including an updated procedure for submitting an occupational accident report as well as the content thereof.

EurActiv (05.10.2018) Estonia and Finland will start exchanging digital prescriptions at the end of the year, in a groundbreaking move that Estonian Health Minister Riina Sikkut said she hoped other EU countries will follow. Speaking to EURACTIV.com on the sidelines of the ongoing European Health Forum in Gastein, Austria, Sikkut said that in Estonia, it is common practice for healthcare professionals to use the e-health system to exchange patient medical records.

Euro WHO (August 2018) This analysis of the Estonian health system reviews recent developments in organization and governance, health financing, health-care provision, health reforms and health system performance. In 2017, the Estonian government took the historic step of expanding the revenue base of the health system, which has been a longstanding challenge. However, in terms of percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) it remains a small increase and long-term financial sustainability could still pose a problem.