BUDAPEST — Hungary’s chances of obtaining a financial bailout receded Friday after lawmakers approved new central bank regulations that had prompted the International Monetary Fund and the European Union to break off talks this month.

The Parliament stripped the central bank president, Andras Simor, of his right to name deputies, expanded the rate-setting Monetary Council and created a position for a third vice president.

A separate law also approved Friday makes it possible to demote the central bank president if the institution is eventually combined with the financial regulator.

In the past few weeks, Hungary has had its sovereign credit rating downgraded to below investment grade by Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service. The forint has fallen 15 percent against the euro since June 30, making it the world’s worst-performing currency in the period.

“The approval of the central bank law shows the government isn’t serious about obtaining an I.M.F. loan,” said Gabor Orban at Aegon Fund Management in Budapest. “The government is floating the possibility of an I.M.F. deal, but in reality it’s playing for time, hoping the global economy will improve and make a bailout unnecessary.”

The government had asked the I.M.F. for aid last month, as its financial situation worsened, to ensure financing for 2012.

On Thursday, Hungary raised less than half as much as planned at a debt auction as its borrowing costs surged to the highest levels in more than a year. The state rejected all bids for three-year notes. The yield on a bond due in 2022 was 9.7 percent.

In a statement Friday, the central bank said the new regulations would “seriously harm” the country’s national interest, allow for political intervention in monetary policy and threaten economic stability. It also blamed the laws for the “indefinite postponement” of talks on a financial aid package.

But during an interview with MR1 radio, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that although an agreement with the I.M.F. and the European Union on an assistance package would raise investor confidence, the cabinet could do without it.

“If we have an I.M.F. safety net, then we face the coming period with greater self-confidence and greater security,” Mr. Orban said. “If we don’t reach an agreement, we’ll still stand on our own feet.”

According to a forecast by the European Commission on Nov. 10, Hungary will have the highest debt level and slowest economic growth among the E.U.’s eastern members next year.

Tamas Fellegi, the Hungarian minister in charge of negotiations on the bailout, will travel to Washington in the first half of January to hold “informal” talks with I.M.F. officials, including the managing director, Christine Lagarde, the news agency MTI reported.

Mr. Orban had shunned I.M.F. aid after taking office last year to protect what he called “unorthodox” measures from oversight. Those steps included the effective nationalization of $13 billion of private pension-fund assets and extraordinary industry taxes to control the soaring budget deficit.

Hungary also required banks to take losses on foreign-currency mortgages, repayment of which has become increasingly expensive as the forint has weakened.

S.P. warned in December that the measures could hinder economic growth and were “likely to depress investment and job creation in the short term.”

The I.M.F. and the Union have yet to make a decision on resuming talks with Hungary.

The European Commission president Jose Barroso plans to be “constructive and avoid any escalation of the situation,” a commission spokesman, Joe Hennon, said after the vote.

Mr. Barroso had sent a letter to Orban outlining the commission’s views, and the commission will continue its “in-depth” examination of the central bank law, Mr. Hennon said.

During his radio interview, Mr. Orban said the government is ready to contest the European Commission in the courts over differences on the new central bank regulation. He added that although Hungary had agreed to most of the changes demanded by the Union, differences remained on two points.

The government stuck to expanding the number of rate-setting council members to as many as nine from seven, and to increasing the number of vice presidents to three from two.

Mr. Orban has been reducing the power of independent institutions and asserting his influence since winning elections last year, bucking objections from the United States and the United Nations.

Lawmakers from his party have ousted the chief justice of the Supreme Court, narrowed the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court, written a new Constitution, replaced an independent Fiscal Council with one dominated by the prime minister’s allies, created a media regulator led by ruling-party appointees and chose a party member to lead the State Audit Office.

In another change, a single judge, Tunde Hando, the wife of a ruling party member, will be responsible for naming all new judges, including replacements for dozens who will be forced into retirement at the end of this year.

“We have significant and well-founded concerns,” the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, wrote in a letter dated Dec. 23 to Mr. Orban, according to the Nepszabadsag newspaper, which published the letter in Hungarian on Friday.

Mrs. Clinton called on Mr. Orban to protect individual liberties and institutional checks and balances, Nepszabadsag said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/business/global/hungary-passes-central-bank-rules-despite-risk-to-bailout.html?partner=rss&emc=rss