Taavi Aas, former Minister of Economy and Infrastructure (Center Party)
The Eesti Ekspress story about the expansion of Nordica during my time as minister is deeply malicious. Of course, everyone, including the minister, understands that a bigger plane is bigger than a small plane. However, this does not mean that the topic was the rapid expansion of the airline back then. Moreover, we had to discuss the purchase of some new aircraft at the annual general meeting of the company.
Such meetings are held once a year with the participation of the minister, the chairman of the council and members of the board. Unfortunately, my status as a minister ended before the general meeting took place, more precisely on 03.06.2022. however, the general meeting was held on 10.06.2022 under the leadership of Acting Minister Maris Lauri. Unfortunately, I don’t know how much he went into developing Nordica. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that I was knowingly or unknowingly involved in the decision to purchase the planes.
However, I can confirm that during my time as a minister, the goal was to make the company profitable again, so that the possible privatization result would be as favorable as possible. In 2021 and 2022, the Nordica group was in profit, and if it continued with a conservative strategy, it would have remained so. Apparently, a bigger plane wouldn’t have been a big problem either. Rather, the reason for today’s situation is new outsourcing, for example cooperation with Marabu. However, these decisions have been made during the time of other ministers.
I hope that the Riigikogu’s special budget control committee will also discuss the issue.
