During the last days about airBaltic everyone, including you, seems to have managed to express the situation. Some call the write-off of more than half a billion euros invested by the state in losses a “scam” and “stealing”, others a “technical adjustment of accounting” before the IPO, or airBaltic to investors of a public offering of shares and before a strategic investor, which will be a well-known and reputable company. I don’t see a “scam” here yet, but the whole way this deal is being pushed through the government doesn’t look credible. How does it all look – from your position as an ex-minister?
I believe that the public was deliberately misled here by explaining, or rather not explaining, the process taking place. Because closed government meetings on a Friday afternoon are not a frequent occurrence. And then just run a press release, calling this whole process a simple accounting operation… And only after the hype was already so big, they tried to explain something, and already with a pair of pliers from the Minister of Transport [Kaspara] Brisken (Progressives) managed to extract, he was forced to admit that the state had invested these funds airBalticwill be written off, and when a decision is made to reduce the share capital, such a decision becomes irreversible – the state loses any right to this invested amount, which was 340 million euros during Covid-19, but more than half a billion euros in total.
And now suddenly the communication has changed and that’s it airBaltic the management and Mr. Bryshken are trying to explain that this money invested by the state was never planned to be recovered, that this money was invested without a plan to recover it. But it never happened! I really vividly remember the government meeting when the financial support was decided airBaltic during covid-19. I was the Minister of Economy at the time, the restrictions were increased rapidly due to the pandemic, many companies could not work, and the pressure was enormous. On the one hand, businessmen came for support, which was very difficult to agree with the finance minister [tolaik Jāni Reiru, Vienotība]and suddenly appears here [toreizējais satiksmes ministrs Tālis] Linkaits with this support airBalticand everything suddenly starts going so smoothly that I didn’t think it was fair to small and medium businesses.
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2024-09-07 13:22:19