“Let’s start from the very beginning: is it really necessary to repair the Cable-Stayed Bridge? Who prepared such a conclusion?” Šmidre asked. He acknowledged that, looking at the situation from a business perspective, he has suspicions about the need for repairs. “It looks to me like a very beautiful business project,” Šmidre said, referring to a Charlie Chaplin film in which a boy helped a glazier by first breaking windows so that they could then be repaired. The entrepreneur expressed the opinion that an independent international assessment would be necessary before such a large-scale repair. In response to Šmidre's remarks, Pupols emphasized that the technical condition of the bridge is serious and repairs can no longer be postponed. Pupols categorically rejected Šmidre's suggestion that the condition of the bridge might have been artificially brought to a critical situation.