EU Estonia bans non-EU citizens from voting in local elections

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2:41

Grzegorz Szymanowski in Narva, Estonia
10/18/2025 October 18, 2025

As Estonians head to the polls on Sunday, nearly 72,000 people — mostly Russian speakers — have lost their right to vote. It's the first election since the country passed legislation excluding non-EU citizens from voting. In Narva, Estonia's border city with Russia, DW asked residents what they make of the change.

Estonia's parliament amended the constitution in March to bar non-EU residents from voting in local elections, a move mainly affecting people who still hold Russian passports.

Lawmakers framed it as a national security measure amid tensions with Moscow, saying only Estonian citizens should decide local matters.

As voting began, Estonians in the border city of Narva reflected the country's growing divide over identity and belonging.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

How can you be a citizen of an EU nation but not a citizen of the EU?

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

How can you be a citizen of an EU nation but not a citizen of the EU?

Ever since the USSR broke up Estonia (as well as Latvia to a lesser extent) has had some strange manner of pseudo-citizenship for the Russians that live there. They had both permanent residence as well as the right to vote in local elections, despite not being citizens of Estonia because when Estonia became a thing once again only the Estonian citizens as well as their descendants from before the soviet period got it automatically, with all the soviet arrivals having to go through the regular process of acquiring citizenship (which is of course drawn out and bureaucratic by design). This new law makes it so that they can't vote in the local elections anymore

 

[TheArtilleryman]

How can you be a citizen of an EU nation but not a citizen of the EU?

Presumably, non-Estonian citizens can vote in Estonia's elections so long as they are instead EU citizens? The article seems to imply that Russians from across the border were also coming over to vote before this ban. It begs the question who the hell isn't allowed to vote in Estonia?

Edit: ninja'd by the explanation

 

[whatever I feel like]

Go back to hell or give up your hell citizenship, hellians.

 

[Coalescence]

iirc, wasn't revocation of voting rights one of the key reasons for the secession of the Donbass and the start of the Ukie civil war? Surely history won't repeat itself, right?

 

[Male Idiot]

So can I vote in Estonia? I can choose between the LGBT childsnatcher alliance, the Angry Nato Chivavas and the 10 man skinhead metal SS party?

 

[Diesel Boogaloo]

iirc, wasn't revocation of voting rights one of the key reasons for the secession of the Donbass and the start of the Ukie civil war? Surely history won't repeat itself, right?

No, Ukraine didn't have the issue of tons of non-citizens living in its borders like Latvia or Estonia do.
There were some attempts at restricting the use of Russian language in official contexts, maybe you're thinking about that.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

So like a guy from Belgium can drive over to Estonia and participate in a local town elections?

 

[PetiteFeet]

So like a guy from Belgium can drive over to Estonia and participate in a local town elections?

No, he wouldn't be able to. The issue and the change is Russian nationals living in Estonia. Say your Belgian fellow lives and works in Estonia, he'd presumably be allowed to vote if he has his papers in order.
As a citizen of another EU country, I wouldn't be able to drive to Estonia and vote in their next election because I don't have any papers to be in the Estonian system even if I do have a passport that lets me into Estonia.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Sounds raycis

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

This is fascism!!!

 

[William Murderface]

Why are non-Estonians allowed to vote in any Estonian elections at all? Tell the ethnic Russians to pick to either be Estonians or Russian and if they choose to be Russian to hit the bricks and go to Russia.

 

[DumbDude43]

How can you be a citizen of an EU nation but not a citizen of the EU?

when estonia became independent, citizenship of the new nation state was given to those who were previously citizens of the estonian soviet republic, while those who were previously citizens of the russian soviet republic instead became citizens of the new russian federation.

there's a lot of those russians in estonia still. theyre not estonian citizens but russian citizens, so they cant vote in national elections, but they did have voting rights for local elections. that's what was taken away now.

 

[Overly Serious]

iirc, wasn't revocation of voting rights one of the key reasons for the secession of the Donbass and the start of the Ukie civil war? Surely history won't repeat itself, right?

Not exactly that, but the underlying situation has a lot of parallels.

Ukraine has a very large Russian population and Russian is actually the dominant language there. The TV show that Zelensky starred in that paved the way for his presidential campaign was a Russian language show and he only started learning Ukrainian after he was election as some kind of sop to the nationalists. Estonia doesn't have quite such a large Russian population but it's still a lot. And they've been there a long time.

Anyway, in Ukraine the elected president cancelled an EU trade deal in favour of a more favourable one with Russia. The West backed a coup which brought in Poroshenko - a pro-Western candidate. He wasn't elected and the most Eastern regions of Ukraine along with Crimea - which is wholly Russian and always has been and by treaty allows a Russian base there - they all refused to recognise the new unelected president. Crimea was immediately annexed by Russia because of its military significance and because it was semi-independent of Kiev anyway (had its own parliament). For the Donbas region in the East however, that turned into a civil war with pro-coup forces (backed by the West) shelling towns and cities there. Skip forward eight years, Donetsk and Luhansk formally secede from Ukraine by referendum, Russia enters. That brings us up to where we are now.

Like Ukraine, Estonia shares a border with Russia. Though it's less strategically important to Russia than the border with Ukraine is. Every invasion of Russia (I think) has come up through Ukraine - Napoleon did, Hitler did. They're very touchy about troops massing on that border. Estonia doesn't have that risk for Russa as much so there's less strategic reason for Russia to directly intervene. And Estonia is part of NATO so in theory it could trigger Article 5 if Russia attacked it. Though that would be the ultimate in wagging the dog. Nobody is sure that the USA, France, Germany et al. want to get in a hot war with Russia over Estonia. It has a military of approximately three men and a rifle between them (I believe it also has a boat). Russia would swat it like a fly. But because it's part of NATO it loves to bark.

So there are significant disincentives for Russia to involve itself. I mean it took them eight years before they finally intervened with the similar-ish situation in Ukraine. But they still wont be happy about ethnic Russians being denied the right to vote. You can be sure that even though these people don't get representation, the Estonian government is still subjecting them to taxation.

Hope that's useful.

 

[JosephStalin]

After what the USSR/Russia has done to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania over the years am surprised these countries haven't kicked every last Russian citizen out of their countries.

 

[Diesel Boogaloo]

when estonia became independent, citizenship of the new nation state was given to those who were previously citizens of the estonian soviet republic, while those who were previously citizens of the russian soviet republic instead became citizens of the new russian federation.

Not exactly.
Estonia and Latvia didn't care about details of Soviet citizenship, they simply gave citizenship as if the laws of the pre-war republics were still in place. So the new republic gave citizenship to all the people who had a parent or a grandparent who was a citizen of the old republic. Everyone else was deemed an illegal immigrant, but was granted an amnesty and residency without citizenship.
This is in contrast to Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, which gave citizenship to all Soviet citizens living within their borders.

 

[whatever I feel like]

No, Ukraine didn't have the issue of tons of non-citizens living in its borders like Latvia or Estonia do.
There were some attempts at restricting the use of Russian language in official contexts, maybe you're thinking about that.

The Donbass regions "seceeded" because two divisions of plainclothed Russian infantry claimed that they were angry citizens.

 

[William Murderface]

The Donbass regions "seceeded" because two divisions of plainclothed Russian infantry claimed that they were angry citizens.

It would have been funny if the Ukes rolled in troops and machine gunned the lot of them for trying to throw a coup and then let Moscow try to say they were Russian troops after all.

I mean, Putin still would have rolled over the border at that point, but it still would have been funny to see Moscow try to spin that one.

 

[Mound Dweller]

iirc, wasn't revocation of voting rights one of the key reasons for the secession of the Donbass and the start of the Ukie civil war? Surely history won't repeat itself, right?

The Ukraine war happened because Putin lost the influence game and chimped out over it, simple as.

Exactly what happened is all well documented; in 2014 the ukie gov collapsed due to popular discontent (vatniks call it a coup, it was a revolution, there is plenty of video), and in response Rusnig troops took off their insignias and infiltrated across the border, they got away with it because western leadership at the time was still falling for the "end of history" meme.
Vatniggers like to cope over this totally not being a land grab because "muh historic russian clay" etc, just bear in mind what they're actually saying; russia can do no wrong, they'll say this in a lot of ways like "it wasn't really an invasion" or "hohols started it by not letting us annex them".
Anyway 2022 comes around and Putin being high on his own supply goes for seconds, and has been getting his dick sandpapered ever since (the Russian Federation has been at war with Ukraine for almost as long as the USSR was at war with Nazi Germany ).

This is the game they play, and it's the one they'd like to play in Estonia too hence the pre-emptive measures, total fifth column death.