Bank of Slovenia Probe Breached ECB Document Confidentiality
- Central bank calls for swift completion of investigation
- Banka Slovenije comments after finance minister resigned
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Slovenia’s central bank castigated the country’s prosecutor for breaching the confidentiality of European Central Bank documents in a raid tied to an investigation of the monetary authority’s role in a 2013 bank rescue.
Banka Slovenije called on Prosecutor General Zvonko Fiser to conclude his probe into the 3.2 billion euro ($3.5 billion) taxpayer-funded bank recapitalization of state-owned banks, which swelled the euro-zone member’s fiscal deficit to 15 percent of gross domestic product last year. Both the central bank and Finance Minister Dusan Mramor, who unexpectedly resigned on Wednesday, have sided with ECB President Mario Draghi in portraying the probe as an attack on the central bank’s independence.