Press release

Yesterday evening Boštjan Jazbec, the governor of the Bank of Slovenia, reported an offence of criminal threatening under the first and second paragraphs of Article 135 of the Criminal Code to the police department in Ljubljana. He has received several threats via messages on his work mobile, the latest arriving last night. He informed the police accordingly. The unknown sender is also threatening Mr Jazbec’s children. In light of these circumstances, the governor will ask for police protection, which he is entitled to under the Decree on the protection of particular persons, premises, structures and surroundings of structures protected by the police.

Mr Jazbec said: “The threats are intolerable. Since the bank recovery was carried out in 2013 and 2014, I have faced a media lynch-mob, with calls for me to be lynched being published uncritically in readers’ letters. The author of one such letter, a member of one of the civil initiatives of holders of extinguished bank shares and bonds, threatened that those of us involved in the recovery, should the authorities fail to begin proceedings against us, would “be lynched by the people in the next uprising”. In recent years I have also been subject to verbal abuse from passers-by in the street. I do not want to speculate about the perpetrators. I dare say that I am a thorn in the side of all those who lost money in the bank recovery. I therefore repeat: the bank recovery in 2013 was necessary because of the failure of governments to respond in timely and correct fashion between 2008 and 2012, in particular their failure to heed the calls for the urgent recapitalisation of the largest state-owned banks.”

Mr Jazbec was yesterday finally confirmed as a board member of the Single Resolution Board. The date for his departure from the position of governor of the Bank of Slovenia will be known in the coming weeks.