Bank Bailout Under Scrutiny in Parliament
The debate in parliament has been requested by the opposition New Slovenia (NSi) but endorsed by all parliamentary parties. It is to examine allegations that the capital shortfall at banks was exaggerated to justify the erasure of junior bondholders.
The issue has stirred a lot of dust in a country where the EUR 5bn bailout appears for the meantime to have subsided years of agony in the banking sector caused by risky and often reckless and crony lending practices prior to the onset of the crisis.
But at the same time, the bailout controversially wiped out around 2,000 holders of subordinate bonds in the affected state-owned banks, leaving many angry over the lost savings.
Bondholders are already pursuing their cause in the courts over whether the erasure was legal and in line with the constitutional protections of property ownership.
However, the latest allegations go further, suggesting that the banking regulator intentionally overplayed the situation to have greater justification to delete the bonds.
This has been vehemently rejected by the central bank, which maintains that all procedures in the bailout were in line with national laws and EU rules and based on reviews of banks conducted by independent auditors in 2013.
Banka Slovenije Governor BoĊĦtjan Jazbec has been invited to Friday's session of the National Assembly to answer questions from MPs.