Polish Lawmakers Start Probe of Central Bank Governor

Agnieszka Barteczko and Natalia Ojewska
·2 min read
4
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

(Bloomberg) -- Poland’s ruling coalition set in motion a process to ultimately oust the central bank chief, an ally of the previous administration who’s accused by Prime Minister Donald Tusk of political partisanship.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Adam Glapinski, the governor of the National Bank of Poland, is among other things accused of misleading the administration over the central bank profit and its impact on the state budget, irregularities in the bank’s bond buying and engaging in politics, according to a motion filed on Tuesday. Poland’s currency and bonds showed nearly no reaction.

Tusk and his allies attacked Glapinski in last year’s election campaign, calling him a partisan of the then-ruling Law & Justice party who used his perch to engage in politics. They also said he failed to stem the biggest spike in inflation in a generation.

“The central bank has been changed into Law & Justice’s chief bastion for special tasks,” lawmaker Tomasz Trela told reporters in parliament. “Markets will sigh with relief when this pest stops being the central bank’s governor.”

The governor has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. At a news conference aimed at showing central bank support for the governor, NBP management board member Pawel Szalamacha said that Poland “stands before an attempt to break central bank independence.” Glapinski didn’t take part in the briefing.

The parliamentary motion, signed by 191 lawmakers in the 460 seat lower house, is the first step in a procedure that could land Glapinski in front of a special tribunal. Its submission to the parliamentary speaker triggers an investigation by a committee of lawmakers, which involves taking testimony from witnesses including Glapinski and may take as long as a year or longer.

“Nobody knows” how long the investigation will take, according to Zdzislaw Gawlik, who is the head of the parliamentary committee which will carry out the inquiry. The lawmakers’ findings will be reviewed by the full lower house before a vote on whether to put the governor in front of the tribunal.

The procedure, which Tusk has vowed to start quickly after taking power last December, has run into a legal thicket. The Constitutional Tribunal, a court dominated by Law & Justice-appointed judges, ruled in January that lawmakers can’t suspend the governor as part of the probe.

Law & Justice has also queried the court to determine whether lawmakers can summon the governor for an interrogation.

Investors have so far ignored the spat, but it’s unclear how potential twists involved in the probe will affect markets. Poland’s zloty traded less than 0.1% weaker against the euro, while local-currency bond yields dropped by several basis points on Tuesday. Glapinski is in his second and final six-year term, which runs out in 2028.

--With assistance from Maciej Martewicz and Piotr Bujnicki.

(Updates with central bank comments, market reaction from paragraph two.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.