Greece's central banker on Saturday denied that the leftist government of Alexis Tsipras was seeking to squeeze him out him as he probes the loans of a politically sensitive bank. "There is no plan to defenestrate me," Yannis Stournaras told reporters after a meeting with Tsipras. Relations with the government "had never soured," he insisted.
Stournaras is about to deliver the results of a probe into loans given out by Attica Bank, a state-controlled lender considered close to Tsipras' administration. Stournaras said the probe by the Bank of Greece and European watchdog SSM, which he oversaw, covered Attica bank loans "over quite a large period of time."
The meeting came two days after investigators raided the office of Stournaras' wife Lina Nikolopoulou, who is a public relations executive, in a separate probe into an allegedly irregular promotion campaign at Greece's state watchdog Keelpno. Nikolopoulou later issued a statement claiming that the "real target" of the raid was to put pressure on her husband.