(Repeats story published late on Wednesday)
By Peter Laca
BRATISLAVA, June 25 (Reuters) - Slovak Finance Minister Jan
Pociatek survived on Wednesday a no-confidence motion in
parliament, initiated by the opposition who suspect that top
state officials leaked information on last month's currency
revaluation.
The allegations are a stain on Slovakia's preparations for
euro adoption next year, approved by European Union leaders
after the country cut its budget gap and kept inflation low
enough despite pressures from surging oil and food costs.
Opposition requested the no-confidence vote, claiming
Pociatek was politically responsible for what it says was a leak
of information about the 15 percent revaluation of the Slovak
crown's peg to the euro on May 28.
"There is a suspicion that minister Pociatek did not act in
public interest, but in interest of a small circle of people,
and therefore in private interest," said Mikulas Dzurinda,
former reformist prime minister and now an opposition leader.
The opposition did not directly accuse Pociatek of leaking
the revaluation information. The minister said he did nothing
illegal, and was backed by Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Slovakia revalued the crown's central rate within the EU's
ERM-2 exchange rate mechanism by 15 percent on May 28. The crown
had jumped 1.4 percent before the official news of the
revaluation was issued in the late evening.
The government said a leak was not technically possible
because the revaluation was not yet agreed upon when large
amounts were traded on the small local currency market.
"It is indisputable that if the information did not exist,
it could not have been leaked," said Interior Minister Robert
Kalinak, who represented Fico at the no-confidence motion.
The central bank has started an inquiry into what it said
was unusually high trading volume of about 800 million euros
($1.2 billion) before the revaluation. The market's daily
average is around 300 million euros.
MONACO PARTY
Pociatek offered to quit last week after allegations of the
information leak combined with media reports that he had gone to
a yacht party in Monaco organised by a private equity group
that, the opposition says, made tens of millions of dollars on
currency speculations before the revaluation.
Fico rejected Pociatek's resignation offer, although he said
the minister's attending the private equity event was unethical
behaviour.
Pociatek was instrumental in cutting fiscal deficits to
qualify for euro adoption, but observers say his position will
be fragile as the leak allegations may hurt Fico's popularity if
they persist over the longer term.
"Since the yacht trip, Pociatek is politically a dead
corpse," said political analyst Samuel Abraham. "It is only a
matter of time when Fico dismisses him, or accepts his
resignation."
"Fico can resist this pressure for some time, because this
is an opposition theme and action, but when he assesses it as
harmful, he will make the move," Abraham said.
The opposition failed to muster the 76 votes needed in the
150-seat parliament to dismiss a government member, with only 48
deputies voting for Pociatek's dismissal.
(Editing by Leslie Adler)
