Date: 21st August 2018
Author: BETTER FINANCE
In last week’s extensive article entitled Pressures on Slovenia, Which Are Not Discussed Publicly (www.delo.si/novice/slovenija/pritiski-na-slovenijo-o-katerih-se-na-glas-ne-govori-81803.html), the leading newspaper (Delo) disclosed the continuous and ever greater pressures on Slovenia to withdraw from the investigation of these acts, despite reasonable grounds for suspecting that in the fall of 2013 the then heads of the Bank of Slovenia committed a number of crimes in the process of expropriating NLB Bank investors (VIDEO). What is more, Delo discloses that at first the European Commission had tried to handle the matter in non-formal settings – failing this, they resorted to formal procedures. As disclosed months ago by the Siol portal (www.siol.net/posel-danes/novice/pod-oznako-zaupno-guverner-jazbec-hujskal-ecb-proti-sloveniji-453486), Mr. Boštjan Jazbec, ex-Governor of the Bank of Slovenia, now main person under investigation, added considerably to these pressures by actively meddling and sending confidential letters to EU officials.
Here’s how Siol portal summarized Mr. Jazbec’s words to the European Central Bank (ECB): “If I go down, you’re coming with me.” The Delo article discloses that pressures exerted by the European Commission and ECB in collaboration with Mr. Jazbec are intensifying, so that now the Slovene prosecution is so much as “willing to have an agreement with ECB”, but the ECB imposes “such demands that fulfilling them would block the investigation.” Furthermore, the article explicitly states that according to the assessment made by Slovene authorities, Mr. Jazbec “continues lobbying for the European Commission to carry on the procedure against Slovenia from his current position of SRB board member”.