"That would be the solution only in an emergency. We are doing everything to avert it because it would be a bad signal at this moment," he said in Brussels, where he was attending a meeting of the European Union's finance ministers.

"For now, we think it's possible to find private investors for our banks and that (the European Stability Mechanism's) assistance won't be necessary."

Last week, Sustersic said that Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), the largest state-owned bank which holds 38 per cent of the banking market, would need EUR 400-500 million in fresh capital this year alone, at the request of the European regulator, to achieve capital adequacy, and later even more for normal operations and corporate lending.

Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec told national television last night he was very worried about the NLB situation.

"It's not an ideological issue but an issue of survival. If we don't do something about NLB by the end of the year, we'll be in a lot of trouble," he said, dismissing the opposition's claims that the new government was using the crisis to sell state-owned banks and other assets.

The real problem is that foreign investors are not interested in NLB because it is burdened with non-performing loans without guarantees, said Erjavec.