site.btaPresident Declassifies Transcript of June 2014 Bank Crisis Meeting

ESD 18:11:31 10-06-2017
VE1812ES.105
105 POLITICS - CORPBANK - MEETING - TRANSCRIPT

President Declassifies Transcript
of June 2014 Bank
Crisis Meeting


Sofia, June 10 (BTA) - A transcript of a June 29, 2014 meeting of the Consultative Council on National Security (CCNS) concerning the now-bankrupt Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank) makes it clear that one of the options considered for averting a bank crisis in Bulgaria was to announce a bank holiday, but the CCNS unanimously decided in favour of government support for the banking system instead. The verbatim record of the meeting was posted on the website of the President's Administration on Friday evening, following a court judgment on a petition by media organizations.

The June 2014 meeting lasted four hours, and the transcript is 101 pages. Only names of banks and financial institutions have been omitted from the published text, except for Corpbank, which was ailing at the time.

The record shows that the discussion between the then Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), Ivan Iskrov, the President of Bulgaria, Rosen Plevneliev, and the leaders of the parliamentary parties was centred around the banks and the parliamentary opposition's call for the government of Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski to resign.

BNB Governor Iskrov insisted during the meeting that the central bank had not contributed to the Corpbank crisis. Iskrov proposed seven measures to tackle the situation. He said that Corpbank would cost the state "as much as necessary."

Prime Minister Oresharski said the crisis could cost several hundred million leva, or it could cost many billions of leva.

The record also shows that Boyko Borissov, then leader of the opposition, repeatedly urged Oresharski to fire his Finance Minister Peter Chobanov. Borissov also insisted that the Prime Minister himself should resign.

At one point during the meeting, President Plevneliev suggested "restrictive measures," including a ceiling on cash withdrawals from banks, but it soon became clear that everyone would rather go for a Plan B, according to which the government would support those banks which were in trouble.

Finally, the politicians agreed to announce publicly that they stood together behind the banks.

The June 2014 meeting was called by President Plevneliev just days after the ailing Corpbank was placed under central bank receivership. Plevneliev and his successor, President Rumen Radev, repeatedly refused to make public the transcript of the meeting, citing professional secrecy. This refusal was revoked on May 12, 2017 by the Sofia Administrative Court, which ordered that the transcript be declassified. The case had been taken to the court by the editor-in-chief of the investigative website Bivol, Atanas Chobanov.

On Friday, in his first televised interview as President, Rumen Radev told bTV that the transcript of the June 29, 2014 meeting and another one from a July 14, 2014 meeting about Corpbank (still classified) have acquired mythical proportions. Radev said it has been suggested that the two records will reveal the truth about Corpbank, about who has stolen how much money and where the money is. "This is not true. There is no such information there," he asserted.

As for the second meeting (July 14, 2014), Radev has taken steps to remove the designation "confidential" on its transcript. He said: "I have to think about when to publicize it, if at all, because the first transcript will be a test for our society which will show whether we deserve transparency or not." LN/VE
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