Vahtras denies role in EUR 1.25 million support decisions

Liina Vahtras, who became Estonia’s economy and industry minister this week, said in an interview with ERR’s “First Studio” that she had done nothing wrong, despite questions over state support awarded to start-ups linked to her investment company.

Opposition parties have raised concerns about a possible conflict of interest involving Vahtras’s previous role as a board member of the Enterprise and Innovation Foundation, or EISA, an agency that distributes business support. Companies in the portfolio of Rochna Invest, where Vahtras was a board member, received around EUR 1.25 million in support from EISA.

Vahtras said she had played no role in either applying for or awarding the support. She said she had declared her connections to two companies when she joined EISA as head of the e-Residency programme three and a half years ago, and had repeated the declaration every year.

Vahtras said she later became a board member of EISA but was responsible for the e-Residency programme and the agency’s marketing and communications functions. She said she had not been involved with support measures and only learned that the companies had applied for and received funding when EISA received media inquiries.

She also said Rochna Invest had never received support itself. According to Vahtras, the three companies mentioned in the media had only small, several-percent stakes held by Rochna Invest.

“I am in a situation where I have not done anything wrong, but it gives the impression that I have,” Vahtras said.

She added that EISA distributed support more than 6,200 times last year, totalling EUR 215 million, and said it would have been practically impossible for her to monitor matters under another board member’s area of responsibility.