Polish central bank governor, four rate setters consider legal action against some colleagues

By Alan Charlish and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk

WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland’s central bank Governor Adam Glapinski and four other rate setters threatened legal action on Tuesday against some members of the Monetary Policy Council over public statements they have made about policy.

The group did not identify which colleagues they were referring to but their joint statement follows criticism of the functioning of the Monetary Policy Council (MPC) on Monday by two of its members, Przemyslaw Litwiniuk and Joanna Tyrowicz.

Litwiniuk said in an interview that MPC members’ freedom to operate was limited, while Tyrowicz posted an altered version of the MPC’s most recent post-meeting press release on social media in which she wrote that the rate-setting body was not taking the necessary action to curb inflation.

“We do not accept and express our extreme disapproval of actions which, in our opinion, may constitute a violation of the aforementioned provisions of the law and, therefore, we consider it justified to consider sending a notification of a suspected crime in this case,” Glapinski and his colleagues said in a joint statement.

The statement was signed by Glapinski, Cezary Kochalski, Wieslaw Janczyk, Ireneusz Dabrowski and Henryk Wnorowski.

The other members of the MPC are Tyrowicz, Litwiniuk and Ludwik Kotecki, a former deputy finance minister who has been critical of monetary policy.

All three were appointed to the MPC by the Senate, which is controlled by the opposition.

Litwiniuk told private broadcaster Radio Zet that he did not take the statement as being in reference to him, and compared its language to Trybuna Ludu, a Communist-era newspaper.

At a press conference last Thursday, Glapinski criticised MPC members who “take 37,300 zlotys ($7,437.69) a month for participating in one meeting during the month and criticise the actions of the whole body”.

The central bank kept its main interest rate at 6.75% at its Oct. 5 meeting following a run of 11 consecutive hikes.

Tyrowicz continued her criticism of the direction of policy on Tuesday in a live interview just before publication of the statement, saying that rates should rise by several percentage points more.

“As an economist, I haven’t understood the decisions made by the MPC for a very long time,” she told the Gazeta.pl website.

In comments made after the publication of the statement, Tyrowicz said she didn’t understand and defended her right to criticise the policy course.

“I have the right to my own analysis. The MPC mandate to protect price stability is not being implemented,” she told TVN24 television. Last Thursday Poland’s parliament approved the appointment of Iwona Duda and Gabriela Maslowska to the MPC to fill vacancies on the 10-member council.

($1 = 5.0150 zlotys)

(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Susan Fenton and David Evans)