Surprise Tax Hike Brings Estonia’s Popular Leader Under Pressure

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who scored a resounding reelection victory last month, is coming under pressure as critics say she broke a promise not to raise taxes.

The premier met a clutch of protesters led by her predecessor, Juri Ratas, as she arrived for the first meeting of her new government in Tallinn on Thursday. Kallas’s Reform Party dropped 2 percentage points to 24%, according to a Norstat poll published Tuesday, after unveiling an increase in income and sales taxes this month.

Kaja Kallas

Photographer: Valeria Mongelli/Bloomberg

Her party was a champion of fiscal austerity after the 2008 global financial crisis ...