Slovenia promised to sell the bank by the end of 2017 after the 2013 bailout, but is now unofficially trying to extend the deadline.

The Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SSH), which is in charge of the sale, announced already last autumn that a decision on the privatisation would not be taken before this spring when the 2016 report for NLB is in.

The fully state-owned bank, whose capital adequacy is well above the required minimum, has reported a EUR 91.5m net profit at group level for the first nine months of 2016.

Chief supervisor Primož Karpe estimated in an interview last November that "NLB could pay around 500 million euros into the state budget in five years".

Meanwhile, the country's leadership has assessed that selling immediately could be unjustified economically due to uncertain domestic and international factors such as Brexit and instability on financial markets.

The risks at home include potential damages payments to bailed-in shareholders and subordinated bondholders and the lawsuits in Croatia over the defunct LB bank.

According to unofficial reports, Slovenia has proposed a three-year extension of the privatisation deadline to the European Commission.

"Slovenia did not file an official extension request, while we are assessing different possibilities," the Finance Ministry has said, arguing that certain legal issues need to be resolved in dialogue with the Commission in the context of the mentioned uncertainties.

One alternative scenario that has emerged unofficially would involve Slovenia, which privatised its second largest bank, NKBM, in 2015, speeding up the sale of Abanka, the no. 3 bank, in exchange for pushing back the NLB sale.

The government indeed confirmed on Thursday SSH's annual asset management plan, under which procedures to sell Abanka, so far envisaged by mid-2019, would start already this year.