"I don't know at what price the sales agreement will be made, but manipulation that we are going to get 200 million for a bank in which we invested a billion is just that - manipulation," Mramor told parliament on Monday.

He was responding to a claim by Luka Mesec of the opposition United Left (ZL) that the bank was being sold too cheaply - the latest reports put the price at EUR 200m - by a private investor that will merely drain the bank before it cashes out.

According to Mramor, Slovenia invested a billion euros to cover the "huge shortfall" and preserve the value of the deposits at the bank.

As for the sales price, he said the "the only real criteria about appropriateness of the price is at what price banks are being sold abroad...This is the only criterion, everything else is misleading."

Commenting on Mesec's claim that the bank is now overcapitalised, Mramor said the capital ratio was "just right", as evident from the results of the European Central Bank stress tests.

"You have to look at the capital adequacy as well as bad claims. Our NKBM has a far above-average share of bad claims," he said, noting that the price, whatever it will be, reflected the expected future cash flow.