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Estonia-wide series of debates “Estonia’s Most Important Debate” will focus on population

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Posted on 6 November 2011, 10:00
On Monday, 7 November, the Estonian Debating Society and Statistics Estonia will launch a series of debates, called “Estonia’s Most Important Debate”, focussing on population issues. During the week, researchers and politicians will debate with young people in six different locations in Estonia.

“The debates will be about the most important issues concerning Estonian population, such as birth rate, ageing, geographic marginalisation, internal migration, preservation of traditional culture, and emigration,” said Margo Loor, CEO of the Estonian Debating Society.

“The objective of the debate series is to generate public discussion on these crucial issues for Estonia. This is particularly relevant now, as the upcoming Population Census will reveal a lot of new information that can be used in debates about population affairs. For instance, we can learn about the extent of emigration and the actual number of people living in Estonia,” said Katerina Danilova, Communications Specialist for the 2011 Population and Housing Census.

A total of six debates will be held in Tallinn, Tartu, Narva, Pärnu, and Viljandi. The week of debates starts on 7 November at the Tallinn University of Technology and ends on 15 November at the University of Tartu, where Prof. Marju Lauristin will also give a lecture on the subject. The topics and debaters will be different in each debate, but the common theme will be population.

A detailed schedule and list of debaters is available at /uudised/vaitlus. The debate series “Estonia’s Most Important Debate” is organised by the Estonian Debating Society and Statistics Estonia.

The Estonian Population Census will take place from 31 December this year to 31 March next year. An e-Census will be conducted during the first month (31.12.2011–31.01.2012) when permanent residents of Estonia can answer the questions on the Internet. Those, who do not take part in the e-Census, will be visited by enumerators between 16 February and 31 March 2012.

www.REL2011.ee