The Warsaw Stock Exchange investors got spooked this morning by the recording revealed by the Wprost weekly, unveiling a backroom political deal. In the recording reportedly made last year at a popular Warsaw restaurant, the governor of Poland’s National Bank Marek Belka was caught talking with Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz considering steps needed to prevent the opposition Law and Justice party from winning next year’s parliamentary elections.
The central banker is heard pushing for a deal whereby his institution would support the government of Donald Tusk in the event of a financial crisis. In return, bank governor Belka wanted the finance minister Jacek Rostowski to be replaced. Rostowski was in fact replaced last year as part of a cabinet reshuffle.
“My condition, excuse me, is the dismissal of the finance minister,” whom he disparagingly dubs, “Count von Rostowski.” On the tape, Belka is also heard mocking the ten-member Monetary Policy Council (MPC), which sets interest rates, and asks for new legislation to amend the central bank’s powers. The release of the tape, which the central bank has partially confirmed as legitimate, has sparked a serious political crisis in Poland while Polish treasury yields have fallen as the złoty weakens.
