‘I am not blaming anyone’: Estonians shrug off 23% inflation

theguardian.com:

Like his cappuccinos, Taniel Vaaderpass, 33, isn’t bitter. His usually profitable company, OA Coffee, one of Estonia’s biggest coffee bean roasting companies, may have posted a loss for the first time last year and is set to do so again this year, but Vaaderpass remains strikingly sanguine as he sits on the terrace of the cafe he also owns on a cobbled street in the old town of Tallinn.

The central causes of Vaaderpass’s misfortune is a 240% increase in the price of unroasted green coffee and a 20% surge in the cost of the gas he uses to roast his imported beans. He also felt the need to give his staff a 10% pay rise in January despite the lack of company profits.

This is the reality of living in Europe’s inflation hotspot. The latest figures, published on Thursday, showed that Estonia has an annual inflation rate of an astounding 23.2% – the highest in the eurozone, vastly outpacing the average of 8.9%.

Vaaderpass is inevitably part of the cycle. He has raised his price to supermarkets by 25% over the last eight months and he fears he will have to do so again this year. A coffee in his cafe is today half a euro more expensive than it was, and Vaaderpass says he will also have to cut costs to get “back on track”.

But he is not on the streets calling for the government’s downfall. No Estonians are. Indeed the latest polling has the Reform party, the largest party in the ruling coalition, flying high with 34.4% of the vote, and their conservative rivals on 21.3%, six months before the national elections.

“Estonians are not that temperamental,” Vaaderpass says. “Calm northern people. No emotions, you know. The joke is that when Covid hit and people couldn’t meet, it was a lucky day for Estonians. Celebration day.”

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