Corruption Case of ECB’s Kažimír to Continue, Judge in Slovakia Rules

25 April 2025

By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Peter Kažimír’s effort to evade prosecution for bribery hit a snag on Friday as a Slovak judge found grounds on which to reject his legal team’s claim that the statute of limitations prohibited the continuation of the case.

Kažimír, who heads the National Bank of Slovakia, was charged in 2021 with having bribed the head of his country’s tax authority in 2017, when he was finance minister. A judge two years ago found that there was sufficient evidence of the crime to fine him €100,000 and threaten the imposition of a two-year prison sentence.

Despite additional seemingly damning evidence uncovered in the further course of investigations, Kažimír, who has repeatedly proclaimed innocence, had hoped for a dismissal of the case in accordance with a change of criminal laws decided a year ago by Slovakia’s Constitutional Court.

Those changes had been vigorously backed by Robert Fico, who became prime minister of Slovakia in October 2023 for the third time, his previous mandate having ended in 2018 with his resignation amid public disgust following the murder of an investigative journalist.

Within weeks of the start of his third term, Fico, against the will of the political opposition as well as the president, launched a bid to push through an amendment to the country’s penal code. The ultimately successful attempt effectively halted in its tracks the prosecution of various corruption cases and abolished the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

The shortened statute of limitations under the changed Slovak penal code, which – importantly - applied to corruption cases not involving European Union funds, was promptly invoked by Kažimír’s defence team as grounds to drop his corruption case, but there was initial disagreement over whether the change was applicable to an ongoing case such as Kažimír’s.

Slovakia’s Supreme Court last November found in favour of Kažimír, but today, the judge hearing the case reclassified the offense Kažimír is charged with, so that he is now considered to have caused financial damage to the EU. This effectively makes inapplicable the shortened statute of limitations under the country’s amended penal code.

Kažimír became governor of the National Bank of Slovakia and thus a member of the ECB’s Governing Council on June 1, 2019. His current term is set to end in approximately one month.

Although previously given only slim chances to remain in that post any longer, given the embarrassment of his legal situation – indeed he had been repeatedly urged to resign in light of the corruption charges, calls he adamantly resisted – disagreement between the two largest ruling parties of Slovakia may present him an opportunity to stay.

If the two parties, one of which wants to keep him and the other of which would like to appoint a new governor, cannot come to agreement, then national law dictates that Kažimír be allowed to remain in the position until a successor is found.

Still, the latest turn in the corruption case against him could yet help resolve the impasse.

In Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks 180 countries and territories according to perceived levels of public sector corruption, Slovakia occupied third-worst place among euro area countries, with a significant deterioration from the previous year.