Former Prime Minister Iurie Leancă, who decided in favor of providing state guarantees for the National Bank to fill the financial gap at the three robbed banks - Banca de Economii, Banca Socială and Unibank – while heading the Government, said such a decision was taken because there was no other way out. He made reference to a report drawn up in concert with experts of the International Monetary Fund, which also noted there was no other solution. The issue was developed in the talk show “Shadow Cabinet” on Jurnal TV channel, IPN reports.

According to him, the idea of providing guarantees was formulated by the National Bank and also by the IMF in that report. The document was adopted by the Government bypassing Parliament because of the rumors that attempts were made in the summer of 2014 to buy MPs who would not vote for signing the Association Agreement and the Free Trade Agreement given Russia’s interest not to allow Moldova to make progress on the path of European integration.

Iurie Leancă said that if the classical formula of passage through Parliament had been used and the bills on the provision of state guarantees hadn’t been adopted, the whole banking system could have failed.

Asked why he, as Prime Minister, discussed the situation in the banking system with Vladimir Plahotniuc, Iurie Leancă said this was then the de facto leader of the Democratic Party and he could not take important decisions in the state without consulting the leaders of political parties, besides the state institutions. “When I was dealing with the gas pipeline – and no centimeter of pipe has been built since then – with the Free Trade Area and social projects, those things happened behind me,” stated the ex-Premier.

He noted his relations with Ilan Shor were institutional. “I communicated with him and this does not mean that I did business with him and took money from him. In 2015, when I left the PLDM, they checked if I received presents from him and if I contributed to issuing a diplomatic passport to him and found nothing, but there are people who further insists on this,” said the ex-Prime Minister.

Iurie Leancă headed the Government when the executive assumed responsibility for one of the two state guarantees provided by the National Bank for filling the financial gap at the three banks involved in the bank fraud. The second state guarantees was offered by the Government led by Kiril Gaburici.