Vello Vallaste

Vice President of EVEA 1988-1997,
Manager 1988-1992

I even do not remember exactly, how the idea of EVEA was born. The precondition was anyway the establishment of small-sized enterprises, which started from “Mainor” and the cooperative movement, which began at the beginning of the same year. The government and party authorities, however, were not very enthusiastic about the appearance of new entrepreneurs – they were accused of paying a too good salary, which was why the better employees tended to leave the state enterprises. Another concern was the fact that small-sized enterprises were not subject to government planning and control. As I remember, the direct motive for establishing EVEA was the sitting of the soviet executive committee, which message was clear – the mess had to be stopped.

Since the enterprise movement was opposed by the authority of the state, it was tried to include influential persons to guarantee EVEA’s security. Thus, Rein Otsason, Chairman of the Planning Committee of the ESSR, and Peeter Tammoja, Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, were elected to the first Management Board. An outright personal union was established with the CCI: Vello Vallaste and Oleg Zavjalov, Board Members of EVEA, were elected the members of the presidium of CCI.

After recovery from birth pains, great plans were made. It was considered to be especially important to raise young people in the spirit of free enterprise. First, negotiations were started with the Rector of the Tallinn Polytechnical Institute in order to open the business speciality. The TPI found the rooms, EVEA bought computers and carried out the selection of students to the new speciality. Everything went rather well with the first class: Kersti Tänavsuu, Märt Vooglaid and some others have become famous as entrepreneurs. It was too difficult to take the studies of the bases of enterprise to secondary schools. However, we succeeded in organising enterprise competitions to pupils.

At the end of the 80-s everything seemed to be possible. At the Board meetings it was discussed, how to establish a ship and an airline company and a bank. The first ones remained just a talk, but a bank was established. Since the finances of small-sized enterprises were not sufficient to meet the capital requirement of a bank, three big and successful agricultural enterprises were invited to be among the founders. EVEA Bank declared supporting small enterprises to be its mission and soon it became so well known that EVEA was identified with the bank. However, the state officials of finance undertook the campaign of uniting and liquidation of banks under the label of “arranging”, in the course of which also EVEA Bank was destroyed.

EVEA has had problems also with the fourth power – the press. Once Tõnis Erilaid took his mouth full and announced in “Õhtuleht” that there are dead souls in the Management Board of EVEA. We thought that it was an insult and we took it to the court. The defendant apologised, however, in the corridor of the courthouse before the court session.

By the mid-90-s the structure of Estonian economy had normalised. 95% of the enterprises belonged to the small-scale category and they owned half of the labour and export market. This was also noticed by the politicians and officials and the hostile attitude of the government was replaced by tolerance to small-s-sized enterprises. This meant identity problems to EVEA – the old enemy had disappeared and there was no new one in sight. Is it the European Union today with its orders and prohibitions or someone else?