Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 30 December 2025, the Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (RKIK), an agency under the Ministry of Defence, signed framework agreements with four companies to build production facilities at the Ermistu Defence Industrial Park in Pärnumaa county. The state commits more than €50 million in core site infrastructure (access roads, electricity grid connections, water/wastewater, perimeter security); the four selected companies are expected to match that with comparable private investment in their own production buildings. Commercial production at all four facilities is scheduled to begin in 2027, establishing Estonia's first domestically-produced ammunition, explosive-charge, short-range air-defence missile, and plastic-explosives capacity in nearly a century.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added 49 entities under 52 entries to the Entity List, effective October 11, 2023. The bulk of additions — 42 of 49 — are Chinese entities determined to be acting contrary to US national security or foreign policy interests, predominantly for supplying US-origin integrated circuits to Russian defense-sector consignees after March 1, 2023 in violation of export controls. Remaining entities span Estonia, Finland, Germany, India, Turkey, UAE, and the United Kingdom and were designated on similar Russia-diversion or end-use violation grounds. All listed parties face a license requirement for all EAR-subject items, reviewed under a presumption of denial.

The Foreign Investment Reliability Assessment Act (välismaise investori usaldusväärsuse hindamise seadus, VUHS), adopted by the Riigikogu on 25 January 2023 and in force from 1 September 2023, establishes Estonia's first horizontal ex-ante foreign direct-investment screening regime. The Act transposes EU Regulation 2019/452 into Estonian law and designates the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (Tarbijakaitse ja Tehnilise Järelevalve Amet — TTJA) as the screening authority. It covers acquisitions of qualifying holdings or material influence in target undertakings operating in defence, dual-use, vital services, energy and communications infrastructure, transport, financial services, media, critical raw materials extraction and other strategic sectors. TTJA can prohibit, condition or unwind non-compliant transactions and impose administrative non-compliance levies.

The Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added 91 entities (across 96 entries) to the Entity List under 15 CFR Part 744, in direct response to Russia's further invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The listed entities span ten destinations — Belize, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Malta, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom — and include Russian military research institutes, shipbuilding facilities, aerospace and electronics manufacturers, and suspected front companies in third countries used to circumvent EAR controls. A license is required for all items subject to the EAR; the review policy is denial for 86 entities and case-by-case (for US Government-supported space programs) for five.