Kruup said he believes that their collaboration with the Estonian Association of Architects (EAL) has been adequate, contrary to what Tallinn Deputy Mayor Pärtel-Peeter Pere (Reform) has said.

Another Tallinn deputy mayor, Karl-Sander Kase (Isamaa), told ERR: "SA Tallinna Haigla Arendus is left over from the previous city government; it is a personal project of [former] mayor Mihhail Kõlvart (Center)."

Kase added that it wasn't rational to terminate the separate foundation mid-year, within the context of the city's supplementary budget issued earlier this year.

"But now in the fall we will look over various foundations, business entities and subordinate institutions in Tallinn for restructuring and consolidation. We have special working parties to that end," Kase said.

"The same applies now to Tallinn hospitals, whose joint merger is being analyzed and considered. We will review all these institutions holistically. We have not proceeded ad hoc," Kase said.

Kruup said that establishing a separate legal entity for the Tallinn Hospital project was not a decision made by former mayor Kõlvart but came from recommendation from the European Commission.

"The start of the project was in anticipation of European Commission funding."

"It was their and the banks' recommendation to ensure all costs, revenues, and project-related concerns were clearly understandable, transparent, and traceable," Kruup said.

"Two years' practical experience have shown that this is indeed needed, because the designer is always more knowledgeable than the client. Without the necessary competence, the client can be easily misled by the designer," Kruup went on.

Kruup stressed that the foundation's work is highly specialized.

"We can consolidate the necessary expertise for hospital design on behalf of the client," he said

"However, if the client deems such expertise unnecessary and does not wish to engage substantively with a project, monitor its quality, and manage it, that is, of course, a political decision. But having worked on similar large-scale European projects since 2001, I can confidently say that this would be a very big and strategic mistake," Kruup stated.

"It would affect the quality of the resulting project, construction quality, and later administrative costs of the building. The resources spent on project oversight and management are microscopic compared with those spent on construction, regulation, design, and later administration," Kruup added.

Foundation's salary fund reaches one million euros

According to last year's financial report, the labor costs for the 16 employees (13 staff and three board members) at SA Tallinna Haigla Arendus amounted to nearly one million euros.

In 2022, the same costs were half that figure.

Kruup explained that last year involved immense work on project supervision and management, meaning the higher labor costs were due to the high qualifications of the employees involved, he said.

"These are top-class hospital engineers; there's no denying it—expert salary levels in hospitals and project organizations, including ours, are indeed high," Kruup said.

According to Kruup, high class entails employees with sixth, seventh, and eighth qualification categories, and decades of experience as hospital design engineers, have been involved.

Kruup: Criticisms made by Deputy Mayor Pere inaccurate

On Monday, Tallinn Deputy Mayor Pärtel-Peeter Pere (Reform) said that the Tallinn Hospital design tender should be halted as Kruup and the other foundation employees did not collaborate with the Estonian Association of Architects (EAL) as required by the Tallinn coalition agreement.

But on Tuesday, after meeting with Mayor Jevgeni Ossinovski, Pere softened his stance, saying he does not intend to veto the tender, and that the work will proceed.

Kruup rejected Pere's criticism come what may.

"Deputy Mayor Pere is not familiar with the details nor involved in the project," Kruup said.

"His criticism is, in most cases, inaccurate, and highly so. He is not a health sector person, so indeed - his criticism is 100 percent inaccurate," Kruup averred.

Kruup also said that the description of the coalition agreement's requirement to collaborate with the EAL is inaccurate.

"All cooperation agreements with the EAL were signed in 2021, before the previous design tender. We actually have no substantive or technical issues that we need to reopen with the EAL," Kruup said.

Nevertheless, Kruup will meet with the EAL, but at the association's initiative, he said.

"We will meet because the EAL has expressed a desire to be more involved. So we will meet with them, and Pere will also be a party to this meeting. Presumably, we will meet sometime next wee."

According to Kruup, the EAL members' assessment that they have not been sufficiently involved is due to the association getting a new leader this year.

"This situation has arisen because a new generation has come to the fore, and apparently the former and new presidents of the EAL have not exchanged detailed project-related information. Former chair Andro Mänd is now taking on a new role as city architect, and the new president was not involved in those negotiations related to the project's preparation. We have retained all the documents and continuity, but it seems that continuity within the EAL has not been formalized," Kruup outlined.

Kruup says he remains confident that the Tallinn Hospital will be completed eventually and provided a dose of realism on the current twists and turns. "It will get built. What the public is monitoring now is simply the negotiation tactics of the various parties. This is typical for large projects like this. I can confirm that, based on my experience with three previous European projects, the negotiation period between political parties always took three to even four or five years."

A cooperation agreement signed in 2019 between the state and the city of Tallinn laid the ground for the establishment of Tallinn Hospital, which when built will be Estonia's largest hospital complex.

The decision to establish a foundation for developing Tallinn Hospital was made by the city government in April 2022, under the Center-SDE administration.

Sven Kruup, Ebe Nõmm, and Kaitis Väär were appointed as board members, for five-year terms. To cover the costs associated with starting up the foundation, the city provided a financial contribution of €1.2 million.

Then in the summer of 2021, an international design tender for Tallinn Hospital identified as winners the joint bid from Italian firms ATIproject srl and 3TI Progetti. The subsequent design contract was inked in November 2021.

In March of this year, SA Tallinna Haigla Arendus and the designer mutually terminated the design contract due to dissatisfaction on the part of the foundation, over the designers' work.

Last Friday, Tallinn announced a new international design tender for the hospital, which includes preparing the main project and that of the architectural and interior design work.

The suffix SA denotes a foundation.

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