Outgoing Central Bank Governor Mitja Gaspari said on Monday that he was pleased with his achievements during his six-year term at the post. He pointed to the "fact that we had changed over to the euro, that the adoption did not worsen the economic trends, that the switch was well organised and that it brought no side effects".
Gaspari, whose term in office runs out on 31 March, put these successes down to the appropriate mix of economic policies during his term in office.
He did not want to reveal where he would go now after failing to get another term at the helm of Banka Slovenije. Asked whether he would go abroad, he said "you will see soon".
Gaspari failed to secure the necessary majority in parliament in early February, after being nominated for the post by President Janez Drnovsek. As Drnovsek's second pick for the post, vice-governor Andrej Rant, also failed to secure the 46 votes necessary, the central bank will be left without a governor as of 1 April.
Gaspari therefore appointed on 21 March Rant as his deputy. "Banka Slovenije did everything it could in the existing legal framework to prevent a vacuum in leadership," Gaspari said.
While saying that no major problems in relations between Banka Slovenije and the European Central Bank (ECB) would arise from the Slovenian central bank being without a governor, he nevertheless called for this vacuum to be "resolved in the shortest amount of time possible".
He also said that he would not change any of his decisions if he were to turn back the time at a news conference at which he presented the central bank's projections on the growth of Slovenian economy.
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