Estonia's Pevkur Resigns Over EUR 70 Million in European Peace Facility Advances to Datasel
Tallinn, 2 September 2026
Key points
- Hanno Pevkur, Estonia's defence minister since 2022, resigned on 2 September after the National Audit Office (Riigikontroll) reported on a EUR 70 million ammunition purchase for Ukraine funded through the European Peace Facility
- Between August and December 2024 the Centre for Defence Investments (RKIK) signed four contracts with Datasel S.R.L., an Italian-registered company owned, per ERR and Eesti Ekspress, by an Indian group with no identified record of selling artillery ammunition; RKIK advanced EUR 15 million on the first contract and EUR 10 million on the second, about EUR 70 million across all four
- Deliveries arrived late and incomplete; RKIK terminated the contracts in November 2025, demanded the advances back, and has taken the dispute to an Estonian court and the European Court of Arbitration in Strasbourg
- Datasel's own account, per ERR, states it received EUR 59 million in advances, supplied "a significant quantity of goods", and invoiced EUR 58 million — a dispute over whether the shortfall reflects undelivered goods or an unsettled account
- European Commission spokesman Wigand has not said whether the Peace Facility or Estonia's state budget bears any unrecovered loss; a successor to Pevkur, not yet named, inherits a September decision on Estonia's ballistic-missile-defence layer among Patriot, SAMP/T and David's Sling, at more than EUR 1 billion
Estonia's defence minister Hanno Pevkur resigned on 2 September after the National Audit Office found RKIK had advanced about EUR 70 million of European Peace Facility money to Datasel S.R.L., an Italian-registered, Indian-owned company with no established record supplying artillery ammunition — and the European Commission has not said who absorbs any loss that proves unrecoverable.
Pevkur's defence, given before resigning, was that the countries where shells were available in 2024 "weren't nice, friendly countries where you could just go and make an elegant purchase", that RKIK's board put the contracts before him without his reading them, and that the two permanent secretaries of the day were informed. He resigned on the political-responsibility standard rather than personal fault: "A leader must have both the courage and the stature to take responsibility as a matter of political responsibility, even when there is no personal responsibility." RKIK's new director, Elmar Vaher, said he would not have signed with a supplier of Datasel's inexperience; Pevkur's predecessor at RKIK, Magnus-Valdemar Saar, told ERR no major decision was made without ministry approval. Prime Minister Kristen Michal separated the two standards explicitly: political responsibility for risks taken in Pevkur's area "does not mean he bears personal responsibility".
The ministry Pevkur leaves has roughly tripled its budget since 2022, to about EUR 2.4 billion, five per cent of GDP. The Reform Party discusses successors next week; a minister can be sworn in once the Riigikogu reconvenes the week after. Secretary-general Kristo Enn Vaga is ruled out as incompatible with his post.
The resignation lands on a file Tallinn had scheduled to close this month. Großwald's Signal No. 138 recorded that the September preliminary decision on Estonia's ballistic layer, which No. 130 had dated to these budget talks, along with Tallinn's answer to Washington's posture questionnaire, now passes to a minister not yet named — and to an RKIK leadership that has just said, on the record, it would not have signed the contract at the centre of the resignation. Estonia's defence procurement apparatus enters a decision cycle carrying more than EUR 1 billion in new commitments under the same institutional judgement that failed to catch Datasel.
