BELGIANS BUY ONE THIRD OF NOVA LJUBLJANSKA BANKA

LJUBLJANA, Feb 22 (Hina) - The information that the Belgian KBC bank, in negotiating the purchase of one third of Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) shares, demands state guarantees for the previous Ljubljanska Banka's unpaid foreign deposits are false, a Maribor daily writes on Friday, adding these rumours were initiated by Slovene interest circles who want to prevent the sale of the biggest Slovene bank to a foreign strategic investor. The Vecer daily in its Friday edition quotes an unnamed source close to Slovene negotiators who have announced that 34 percent of NLB will be sold to the Belgian bank by the end of next month. "In the negotiations the KBC does not at all demand guarantees for old Ljubljanska Banka deposits and accepts the decision under which the NLB was established in 1994 by a constitutional law", the daily's source said and added some circles did not want the sale of the bank. Zmago Jelincic's Slovene National Party (SNS) on Thursday demanded the resignation of the Finance Minister, Anton Rop, due to what the SNS calls big mistakes in the financial reorganisation of Ljubljanska Banka and the intention to sell it to Belgians. The president of the SNS bench, Saso Pece, said that by agreeing to state guarantees for foreign currency savings Croatian depositors made with Ljubljanska Banka at the time of the ex-Yugoslavia, Rop has given in to the Belgians and practically confirmed the NLB's commitment, which the government's official policy has been refusing thus far. The Vecer daily writes the Slovene official standpoint is that guarantors for the old foreign currency savings disappeared with the break up of the former Yugoslavia, and that the majority of the deposits were used according to the "territorial principle", that is, in places with offices of the old Ljubljanska Banka. (hina) np sb