Former Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber on Wednesday denied any connection to the sale of Hypo Group Alpe Adria to Bayern LB or that he had pressured Croatia so that Hypo bank could be sold.
"The claim that I travelled to Croatia in the summer of 2007 to remove obstacles to the sale of Hypo bank to Bayern LB can be denied with a simple look at the facts, witness statements and the time line," Stoiber told a Bavarian parliamentary commission of inquiry into the causes of Bayern LB's financial troubles, according to news agencies.
The Bavarian opposition has accused Stoiber of having politically pressured Croatia into approving the sale of the Carinthian Hypo Alpe Adria bank to Bayern LB, which caused the Bavarian state bank losses in the amount of EUR 3.7 billion, but it survived thanks to tax means.
Stoiber admitted, however, that he contacted the then Croatian Prime Minister, Ivo Sanader, after the Croatian National Bank (HNB) claimed that Bayern LB was not a serious operator.
"That made me very mad, especially when one considers that I personally pushed for Croatia's accession to the European Union as soon as possible," said Stoiber.
He went on to say that his phone call to Sanader had no influence on the course of events, as Sanader explained that "Croatia's central bank operates autonomously and that he had no influence on it".
"That was the end of the matter for me and Bayern LB eventually found a way to solve the problem," said Stoiber.
The HNB eventually greenlighted Hypo bank's sale to Bayern LB after the latter apologised for the problems it had caused with a previous engagement in the Croatian banking sector, namely deals with Rijecka Banka from which the Bavarians withdrew in 2002 when the bank was facing bankruptcy. Bayern LB also committed to injecting enough capital into the Hypo bank and to stepping up control over possible money laundering.
The vice president of the parliamentary commission of inquiry, Harald Gueller, said he was sceptical about Stoiber's deposition on events regarding Hypo Alpe Adria bank in Croatia.
Stoiber denied before the commission accusations and media allegations that he had been behind Bayern LB's explosive expansion, notably in Southeast Europe. The purchase of Hypo Alpe Adria bank was part of that strategy.
He said everything had been in the hands of bankers.
