Belka shouldn’t run for the second term – MPC member

Jerzy Hausner, a member of the Monetary Policy Council said in an interview with Tygodnik Powszechny that NBP head, Marek Belka, shouldn’t run for his second term, when his current one expires in 2016. “I expect that he will publicly state what he wants to achieve over the course of the next two years and I want to hear a clear statement that he won’t run for the second term,” Hausner said, adding that “This would be an important element of public decency and taking responsibility for what has happened.” Hausner was referring to the tape scandal, revealed by weekly Wprost which published a recorded private conversation between Belka and Interior Minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz. The taped conversation features a discussion on Poland’s public finances. Sienkiewicz asks Belka if the NBP could help finance the country’s budget deficit as part of a plan to avoid an election victory from main opposition party Law and Justice. The central bank head demands that the finance minister be exchanged for a “technical one” and the law on the NBP modified. Belka also made derogatory statements about Hausner. Hausner claims that the tapes inflicted a “significant blow” to the public perception of NBP which should be viewed as an “independent, public institution.”