Poland: finance minister offered to resign

Poland: finance minister offered to resign

Poland's finance minister offered to resign on Friday after a prosecutor asked a court to investigate whether she collaborated with the country's communist-era secret police.

Zyta Gilowska indicated a wish to stay in office, but said she would leave the decision to Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.

Gilowska, who is also a deputy prime minister, is seen as a guarantor of fiscal responsibility in Marcinkiewicz's government, a coalition of social conservatives with two small Euro-skeptic parties, the AP reports.

Earlier Friday, a special prosecutor, Wlodzimierz Olszewski, said he had asked a special court to examine whether Gilowska might have lied in a 2001 declaration in which she said she never collaborated with the hated communist-era secret police.