František Imrecze (l) testifies that Kažimír (r) handed him a bribe. (source: TASR)
Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. The national bank governor is handed a guilty verdict, which he is appealing. Slovakia is set to lose millions it deposited in a sanctioned bank, and a former minister says he will definitely not run in the election.
Central bank governor found guilty of corruption
Peter Kažímír, a former finance minister and the current head of Slovakia’s national bank, last week became the first high-ranking former Smer politician to receive a criminal conviction. Unlike his one-time cabinet colleagues, who all found themselves in opposition after the 2020 election, Kažimír, who served as finance minister in two of Robert Fico’s governments, landed a lucrative non-political job just before Smer was turfed out, and has since been serving as governor of the National Bank of Slovakia.
This is why the court verdict – although still technically subject to appeal – that found him guilty of bribery, reflects poorly not just on Kažimír and his former party, but on the whole country. In the European context, his case – of a central bank governor being not just charged with, but convicted, of corruption – is extremely rare.
