ERR News – After some leaders of the culture community went head-to-head in a fury over the firing of the National Symphony Orchestra’s director, two more top officials in the Ministry of Culture have lost their jobs for unrelated reasons.
Meanwhile, the opposition coalition is discussing a possible vote of no confidence for the Minister of Culture, Laine Jänes.
Karin Hallas-Murula, director of the Museum of Estonian Architecture, will lose her job after having built the museum from scratch. “Murula’s term as director simply came to an end, and she was not reelected in the new hiring process,” Minister of Culture told Eesti Päevaleht.
Jänes said she was not involved in the decisionmaking process – that was up to a committee under the directorship of the ministry’s secretary general.
In December, Tanel Mätlik, director of Integration and Migration Foundation Our People, will also step down. Formally, he is leaving on his own terms, but several sources told Eesti Päevaleht that Jänes’s fervor in financial inspections motivated the change.
Cranking up the tension, the opposition coalition is discussing a vote of no confidence for the culture minister after she let go National Symphony Orchestra director Andres Siitan on November 15. The firing came after an open letter from Siitan that was critical of Jänes, whose own standpoint was that Siitan’s mismanagement generated the orchestra’s financial crisis. A Centre Party address released November 16 said Jänes’s actions damage Estonia’s reputation abroad.
The Green Party already gave its approval to the no-confidence vote, as the Centre Party and the Social Democrats weigh the issue on November 17, reported uudised.err.ee.
