Off the wire
• A new semester begins in China's lonely little schools  • About 40,000 first-year students start school in Armenia  • NATO deputy chief stresses partnerships within group  • Albanian police destroy thousands of cannabis plants  • Xinhua world news summary at 1530 GMT, Sept. 1  • 1st LD Writethru: SpaceX's Falcon 9 explodes on launch pad, no injuries reported  • Chinese tourists surge after Zimbabwe relaxes visa controls  • Nairobi bourse records best trading day as turnover hits 20mln USD  • 1st LD: Singapore confirms 31 new cases of locally transmitted Zika virus infection  • U.S., Russia carrying out top-level ceasefire discussions: UN envoy for Syria  
You are here: 　 Home

Greek gov't has full confidence in national statistics agency, Eurostat: deputy FinMin

Xinhua, September 1, 2016 Adjust font size:

Greece's government has full confidence in data released by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (Elstat) and Eurostat, Greek Deputy Finance Minister Yorgos Chouliarakis said on Thursday.

Commenting on a case that has refueled concern over Athens' future cooperation with European lenders in recent weeks, Chouliarakis told lawmakers: "The government has full confidence in the Elstat and Eurostat data. Last June's new bailout agreement guarantees and safeguards the independence of Elstat."

According to national news agency AMNA, the Elstat data case was added to the agenda of discussions Greek officials held in Brussels this week, as the new round of negotiations on the next steps in the implementation of the 2015 third bailout agreement resumed following the summer lull.

The case concerns questions on the validity of data provided by Elstat in the past six years, upon which the Greek bailout programs since 2010 are based.

In August, Greece's Supreme Court opened an investigation against Andreas Georgiou, Elstat's former chief from 2010-2015, on charges of making false statements.

The statistician, who has also served as an International Monetary Fund (IMF) expert in the past, is accused of rigging the Greek budget deficit data upwards to facilitate Greece's turn to the bailout mechanism in 2010.

Such scenarios are circulating for years by anti-bailout critics in Greece. The revival of the Georgiou case all of a sudden refueled scenarios in the local press that the Left-led government may use the case as another bargaining tool in talks with creditors.

The European Union has called on Greece to take a clear stance on the matter, expressing support to Georgiou and Elstat statistics.

"The European Commission and Eurostat continue to have full confidence in the quality and reliability of the data delivered by Elstat during Georgiou's term in office," read a recent letter co-signed by European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, Commissioner for Economic Affairs Pierre Moscovici, and Commissioner for Employment Marianne Thyssen.

EU officials requested the Greek government to correct the false impressions.

During Thursday's press briefing in Washington, IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said that the Fund shares the European Commission's concern regarding the case, AMNA reported. Enditem