Estonian ride-sharing startup Bolt aggressively lobbied MKM and drew up a working version of the government's position on the European Union's platform work directive, Brussels-based media outlet Euractiv reported this week. Communication that went through Särav, who previously worked at Bolt, should be public information but was not made available to the website despite requests.

Bolt allegedly wrote a letter to the Spanish government, which held the EU's rotating presidency at the time, and a list of countries supposedly against the directive was sent to Särav.

The deputy secretary general confirmed the correspondence was sent to her, but said she passed it on to another colleague at the ministry,

"To the other deputy secretary-general, whose area of responsibility deals with the Platform Directive, and I also wrote in a letter that I did not want to deal with Bolt issues," she said.

At the same time, Särav added in the letter that Estonian companies should still receive support.

"A natural part of all this lobbying is that businesses send letters to ministries. There are a lot of these joint petitions, some of which are answered. If Estonia wants to join some of the joint letters, as was not the case here, we will reply to the company or lobby group. As far as I know, there was no reply to Bolt, at least I certainly did not reply to Bolt," Särav said.

Asked why these exchanges have not been made public, as required by law, Särav claimed it was human error and she takes responsibility.

"As I said, when I received this letter, I immediately forwarded it, I did not even send it for registration. Actually, I or one of my colleagues should have sent this letter for registration and we did not. We certainly did not do it out of a desire to hide the letter," she said.

Särav said platform work is not within her area of responsibility, but a meeting with food courier service Wolt in September was entered into the ministry's lobbying register.

"We talked more broadly about the situation in the market for Wolt, and we talked about platform issues, among other things. But if you could look into my brain, you would see that I really don't know the substance of this Platform Work Directive.  But true, that was one of the topics we talked about with Wolt and it is certainly not against the law to talk about such topics. Companies do lobby vice-chancellors on various issues, but as you can see from the lobby register, I have not met Bolt," she said.

There are no meetings with Bolt recorded in the register. But Euractiv's article suggests some have taken place with MKM or the Ministry of Finance.

Särav said she remembers that at least one meeting with Bolt took place during former Minister of Economy Riina Sikkut's (SDE) term.

"Again, I did not attend the meeting. I just know that the meeting took place because Bolt informed our team that they wanted to meet with the Ministry of Economic Affairs. And I really don't know any more details about it; I don't know why there's no (note) in the lobby register. /.../ I really don't know if and when the Ministry of Finance met with Bolt," she said.

Särav: "We certainly have not deliberately hidden it"

Särav believes MKM has acted honestly. The ministry's task is to stand up for the interests of Estonian entrepreneurs, she added.

"The Ministry of Economic Affairs in particular must also be interested in standing up for businesses. If we look at the European Union legislation, actually, probably 80 percent of all national legislation in the Member States comes from the European Union. Our task as an Estonian state is to protect the Estonian legal system. If possible, to protect our businesses. I do not believe that we have done anything wrong, apart from the fact that we really mistakenly forgot to register the letters. We will be more careful in the future," Särav said.

Asked about changes to the directive pushed by Estonia, such as letting member states decide on employment terms between the platform and the employee, the official said Estonia is ahead of the curve, and Europe should move in this direction.

"Not to stifle new business models and new services, but to see if the regulatory environment is right for new business models and, if necessary, create new solutions. Of course, in doing so, people's fundamental rights and freedoms must be guaranteed, but that is one very big difference between the European Union and the United States. The European Union has a reputation as a strong regulator and the U.S. is a stronger supporter of business. In fact, Bolt and Wolt are one of the few platform providers from the EU to have come this far and grown this big," Särav said.

Risks related to overworking taxi drivers do not need to be reduced with a European Union directive, she added.

"I believe Bolt and Wolt have other solutions here. For example, if a person has been logged into the app for more than X number of hours, they will be automatically logged out of the app. I do not know if the platforms operate with such issues, but I believe we also have alternative solutions to so-called overregulation," she said.

Bolt stock options still available to Särav

Last March, ERR wrote that Särav did not declare company stock options received when she worked at Bolt in her declaration of economic interests.

Särav said she still had options left, but their value was negligible.

"When it's time to submit my declaration of interests at the end of May, I'll be sure to put them there. But, as mentioned earlier, options do not create any practical value. Should Bolt go public, I will have the opportunity to buy out these options. And then to realize them. Today they sit in one account and are worth as much as air," she said.

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