Von der Leyen visited Estonia in 2022 and the prime minister took her to visit a textile factory near the border with Russia founded by the commission president’s great grandfather. Von der Leyen said the trip brought alive “these distant fairy tales” she’d been told of her family’s history as a child.

That relationship has given tiny Estonia an outsized influence over EU policy, as the bloc’s biggest countries slowly reassess their attitude to eastern member states and their relationship with Russia.

“We did not always hear the voices you brought,” French President Emmanuel Macron said as he apologized for underestimating warnings about Putin during a speech in Bratislava last year. “That time is over.”

Kallas has a core team of around half a dozen and often rolls up her sleeves to work with them fleshing out ideas into formal proposals. They have proposed sanctions on Russia, came up with the plan to source 1 million rounds of artillery that later became an EU initiative, and have been working with France to get the bloc to work on a plan to issue tens of billions of euros in bonds to ramp up the continent’s defense industry.

French support has been a key factor in securing Kallas’s new position. Finding common ground with Germany will be a crucial challenge when she gets to work. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is fiercely opposed to the idea of more joint European borrowing.

But Kallas has started working on him. They sat together during a long dinner in Scholz’s home city of Hamburg in February where the Estonian premier was the guest speaker.

By the end of the evening, the two leaders had grown more familiar with each other, and Kallas had once more made her case about the dangers of Russia with an oblique jibe at Germany’s track record on Russia.

She recalled a speech that Estonia’s first president since regaining independence, Lennart Meri, had given in that same hall 30 years earlier. Putin, then the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, was in attendance.

When Meri had told the audience that despite the collapse of the Soviet Union they shouldn’t be naive in thinking that Russia would give up its expansionist ambitions, Putin walked out.

Despite the warnings from the east, in the intervening years, the EU deepened its reliance on Putin’s Russia, before the rupture in 2022.

“Putin’s walk-out revealed his true colors very early on,” Kallas said. “Many just did not receive the message or did not want to pay attention.”

She has their attention now.

Further reading

Here’s a rundown of the books on Kallas’ list this year:

—Margaret Thatcher, "The Downing Street Years"

—Henry Kissinger, "Leadership"

—Graham Allison, "Destined for War"

—Sven Mikser, "Vareda" (prize-winning novel by Estonian MEP)

—Kim Ghattas, "Black Wave"

—Victoria Belem, "The Rooster House"

—John Lough, "Germany’s Russia Problem"

—Michael Scott-Baumann, "Palestinians and Israelis"

—Sylvie Kauffmann, "Les Aveuglés" or "The Blindsided" (not yet translated into English)

—Simon Shuster, "The Showman"

—Jim Sciutto, "The Return of Great Powers"

—Emile Zola, "Nana"

—Rein Raud, "The Plague Train" (prize-winning Estonian novel)

—Sulmaan Wasif Khan, "The Struggle for Taiwan"

—Michael Axworthy, "Iran: Empire of the Mind"

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(With assistance from Natalia Drozdiak and Milda Seputyte.)

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