PARLIAMENT DEBATES CENTRAL BANK BILL

ZAGREB, March 29 (Hina) - A final bill on the Croatian National Bank (HNB) emphasises the central bank's greater accountability to parliament, a point many MPs called for in the first debate on the bill, Deputy Finance Minister Damir Kustrak said on Thursday. The bill increases HNB's independence but also emphasises its accountability to parliament, Kustrak told parliament. The HNB Statute would be ratified in parliament, whose committee for election and appointments would propose candidates for the HNB governor and members of its Council. The bill also expands the number of persons who can join the HNB Council, provided they are Croatian citizens with monetary, fiscal, banking, and legal experience. They would be elected for a six-year period and could not be state officials. During today's debate, bench representatives pointed to the importance the HNB had in maintaining banking and economic stability. MPs from the opposition's Croatian Party of Rights/Croatian Christian Democratic Union (HSP/HKDU) inquired if the HNB was accountable to parliament or represented a branch office of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The HSP also assessed "it would not be good if replacing the governor proved more difficult than the prime minister." The opposition's Croatian Democratic Union bench, as announced, will vote against the bill, deeming it would make the central bank too independent. They also object to an insufficiently worked out mechanism under which the HNB could affect economic development through the banking sector. (hina) ha sb