A/HRC/7/19/Add.2 page 13 C. Perceptions and reactions of State officials and Government agencies 45. The majority of state authorities recognized the existence of racism and discrimination in Estonia, whilst highlighting the actions and programmes taken by the government to fight these problems. The Prime Minister, in particular, stated that although some people in Estonia, as in other countries, are intolerant and even violent towards foreigners, the Government has a very strong stance against this behaviour. This stance is reflected in the Constitution and other legislation, which unambiguously prohibit any form of racism and discrimination. The Government’s position is to recognize the problems of the past as a means to avoid them in the future. In this regard, the Prime Minister made a specific reference to the issue of anti-Semitism and the collaboration of Estonians with the perpetrators of the Holocaust, emphasizing that the Government had already formally apologized for this period of history and is taking all measures to protect the Jewish community. 46. The Prime Minister also recognized the complex situation of the Russian minority, especially in view of the recent historical background. He highlighted important differences within the Russian community, which reached Estonia in different historical periods over the past two centuries, from the arrival of the old believers to the more recent wave of migration during Soviet times. The Prime Minister pointed out that the Russian community has refrained from engaging in nationalist parties, which has allowed for the strengthening of non-ethnic, mainstream parties. 47. The Special Rapporteur asked government interlocutors about the high number of stateless persons. Most authorities saw the large number of persons of undefined nationality not as evidence of discrimination, but rather as an outcome of large-scale historical processes that placed communities in conflictive situations. Some state authorities, particularly the Chancellor of Justice, recognized that the elevated number of non-citizens represents a concrete problem, whilst underlining the positive steps taken by the Government in order to facilitate the granting of citizenship. According to many authorities, the simplification of citizenship application, including of language requirements, directly contributed to the reduction of the number of persons of undefined nationality from around 500,000 in the early 1990s to 112,000 at present. 48. One of the barriers to reducing the number of stateless persons, according to some State officials, is a lack of incentives for non-citizens to apply for citizenship. In particular, it was pointed out by many authorities, including the Ministers of Interior and Justice, that over the past years, the Government has made a strong effort to facilitate citizenship procedures, which in their views transformed Estonia’s legislation into one of the most liberal in the world. In the view of many authorities, many non-citizens choose not to apply for citizenship because of the limited additional benefits of becoming a citizen. 49. The Prime Minister also focused on the need to bridge the gap in the interpretation of history between the Estonian and Russian communities, particularly regarding symbolic events such as the Second World War, collaboration with the Nazis and the meaning of the Soviet occupation. This gap in historical perceptions was demonstrated in April 2007, during the crisis around the relocation of a monument in homage to the Soviet soldiers that died during the Second World War. A problem mentioned by some authorities is that history has been instrumentalized in some occasions in order to question the right of Estonia to exist as a