World News | Estonia Ratifies CERN Accession to Become 24th Member in One of Europe's Key Scientific Bodies

Helsinki, Jun 1 (AP) Estonia's government has ratified the country's full membership in the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, a move that will give companies, scientists and teachers in the Baltic nation complete access to one of Europe's main research and scientific organisations.

Estonia, a nation of 1.3 million, has been an associate member of the organisation — known by its French abbreviation, CERN — since February 2021. In March, the current CERN countries voted in favour of admitting Estonia as the 24th member in the body that is based in a suburb of Geneva on the Switzerland-French border.

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“Full membership of CERN is important for Estonia since it will mean that there will no longer be any financial ceiling when it comes to us taking part in tenders and entering into employment contracts,” said Tiit Riisalo, Estonia's minister of economic affairs and information technology, in a statement Friday.

The small Baltic country neighbouring Russia to the east, Latvia to the south and Finland to the north will become the first former Soviet republic to gain membership in CERN, which hosts the largest particle physics laboratory in the world.

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One of the priorities of CERN is to promote cooperation between countries in the field of fundamental nuclear research. Its main scientific focus lies in experimental particle physics

For Estonian entrepreneurs and companies, full membership “will enable a transfer of knowledge, first and foremost in the high-tech field, but it will give them wider-ranging opportunities to participate in CERN tenders as well,” Riisalo said.

Estonia's membership will formally take effect after the country has presented its letter of accession to the director-general of UNESCO, the United Nations agency for educational, scientific and cultural matters, the Estonian government said.

Israel is the only non-European full member of CERN, which was established in 1954. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)