“MY CONDITION, excuse me, is the dismissal of the finance minister,” says a man’s voice, referring disparagingly to “Count von Rostowski” and demanding that he be replaced by a “technical and apolitical” minister. The man setting out his terms is allegedly Marek Belka, the governor of the Polish central bank. And the minister whose dismissal he was seeking is Jacek Rostowski, the finance minister, who did indeed lose his job in November last year. Mr Belka also crudely mocks the ten-member Monetary Policy Council (MPC), which sets interest rates, and asks for new legislation to increase the central bank’s powers.

The illegal recording of an obscenity-laced private conversation between Mr Belka and Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, the interior minister, which was released on June 14th by Wprost, a weekly, has set off a bombshell. It has triggered calls for the resignation of Donald Tusk, the prime minister, and for snap elections, and has left Mr Belka’s reputation in tatters. The recording was apparently made last July at a swish Warsaw restaurant that is popular with politicians. Wprost says it has more recordings. This week security services raided its offices, triggering widespread protests from defenders of media freedom.

The most controversial part of the conversation between Mr Belka and Mr Sienkiewicz is their discussion on how Mr Belka could intervene to prop up the economy and thus avert a slowdown that could benefit the opposition Law and Justice party before next year’s elections. Mr Belka is the boss of an institution that is required by law to be independent.

Can Mr Tusk ride out the storm without firing any of the policymakers involved? Both he and Mr Rostowski deny that there was any pressure to fire him. Mr Rostowski was replaced by Mateusz Szczurek, a former economist at an international bank with no political experience. New laws that include a provision allowing the central bank to buy government debt on secondary markets are also in the works: this was a condition of the bank’s support for the government.

In a news conference, Mr Tusk lamented the crude language used during the dinner conversation (much sport was made, for instance, of the private parts of an important member of the MPC). He said that he worried that the recordings “were an attempt to bring down the government by illegal means.”

Mr Belka, a respected former finance and prime minister, has apologised for his language but seems to be hanging on to his job. The MPC, in a strikingly lukewarm statement, stated that it was backing the governor, although it also added that the “unlawful eavesdropping may create the impression that the chairman of the Monetary Policy Council played a part in the political-electoral cycle,” which would be “unacceptable”. Financial markets dropped early in the week over worries that Mr Belka might leave, but have since stabilised. Most analysts reckon Poland’s strong economic fundamentals and the central bank’s solid reputation would not be seriously affected if the governor were to depart.

Mr Tusk has also refused to fire Mr Sienkiewicz, whose security services should have been in charge of ensuring that their boss was not bugged. If the affair cannot be quickly wrapped up, Mr Tusk faces the danger of a series of corrosive revelations about senior members of his government. Whatever the outcome, the scandal has cast a shadow over the government’s claims to probity and competence, its main pitch in the campaigns for local elections this autumn as well as for presidential and parliamentary elections next year.