They had an ample time to get their B1 in Estonian and get full citizenship since 1990. For most it's a choice.
No. It's just the excuse that's trotted out.
If that excuse wasn't available, a difference excuse/fig-leaf would have been given or created.
Trying to get rid of all potential excuses is unlikely to work, they'll just get creative and manufacture something else instead.
Only to visit for up to 90 days, not to actually reside in either place. So it would be more like a stateless European getting an ESTA, which is hardly a replacement for actual citizenship in their home country.
> For its owners it's a decent value
An actual Estonian passport lets its owners work in the EU and gives them mobility across 181 countries; a Russian passport gives them access to 119. Estonian non-citizens can visit 46. Not that visa-free access to another country is the point of citizenship.
Visa free does not generally mean residence permit included. Still a pretty reasonable deal for someone who is not a citizen in Schengen.
> a Russian passport gives them access to 119
A Russian passport requires visa application to any of Schengen states. The queues for filing I believe are into months now.
> Not that visa-free access to another country is the point of citizenship.
Indeed, and people who can't be arsed to naturalize clearly don't see it either.
I do not think that this will really be a motivating factor. Schengen visa waiting times would be the least of a stateless person's concerns.
> Indeed, and people who can't be arsed to naturalize clearly don't see it either.
I am not sure if you are suggesting that non-citizens are refusing to naturalise because they would lose visa-free access to Russia and the Schengen area. Historically, the most commonly-cited barriers to Estonian naturalisation have been the difficulty of the citizenship test and of learning the language, according to the Estonian ministry of culture. The context of the thread was someone suggesting that naturalisation be made easier.