The Greek alternate finance minister on Thursday signaled the leftist Tsipras government’s full acceptance of figures and data supplied by the country’s semi-autonomous statistics bureau to Eurostat.
Speaking in Parliament, Giorgos Houliarakis told deputies that “the government has full confidence in EL.STAT’s figures and Eurostat’s … The June agreement guarantees and protects EL.STAT’s autonomy”.
His comments came a week after another furor erupted in relations between Athens and the Commission over the renewed prosecution of the ex-director of EL.STAT between 2010 and 2015. Andreas Georgiou was indicted by an Athens prosecuter for essentially “cooking the books” to show a greater deficit in 2009. The charges against came after allegations were aired by a former board member of the same agency, with the judicial process renewed after a supreme court prosecutor's inquiry.
Anti-austerity and anti-memorandum political forces in Greece have long claimed that the figure for 2009 was inflated in order to justify the subsequent austerity measures linked to the bailouts, i.e. memorandums.
Three Commissioners, no less, wrote to the Greek government last week to emphasize that Brussels has confidence in EL.STAT figures.
In other statements, Houliarakis estimated that the Greek economy exited a recessionary spiral in the second quarter of the year, while forecasting that the budget will meet a primary budget surplus target, as a percentage of GDP, for the year.
