“It’s nothing personal, but Belka should go,” Leszek Balcerowicz, a Polish finance minister between 1997 and 2000 and former central bank chief told the TVN24 news station.

Balcerowicz said that the secretly recorded conversation between Marek Belka and Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, published by the Wprost magazine on Sunday, appeared to show “a violation of the neutrality of the National Bank of Poland in proposing a political deal with the ruling party”.

The transcripts of the recording appear to suggest that Minister Sienkiewicz asked the central bank governor to assist the government in reducing debt levels and stimulating the economy in the run up to the scheduled 2015 general election if the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) looked as if it might win the ballot.

Belka, in turn, called for the resignation of the then finance minister Jacek Rostowski, who was later sacked during a cabinet reshuffle four months after the conversation took place in a restaurant in Warsaw in July 2013.

“The central bank is an institution where good performance depends on public confidence. It takes time to build trust […] but it can be lost just as quickly,” Balcerowicz added.

PM Donald Tusk could call snap elections if a “crisis of confidence” worsens following release of illegally recorded tapes purportedly showing political collusion between central bank and government.

From Polskie Radio, PAP