A 🧵:
Greek PM @kmitsotakis wants to return Greece to investment grade, but it’ll take more than a primary surplus. It shld also require showing Greece has an independent judiciary. That #Georgiou is still battling courts to clear his name 13yrs on suggests this is not the case.
Greek PM @kmitsotakis wants to return Greece to investment grade, but it’ll take more than a primary surplus. It shld also require showing Greece has an independent judiciary. That #Georgiou is still battling courts to clear his name 13yrs on suggests this is not the case.
Georgiou was appointed president of the Greek statistics service in Aug 2010 after it emerged that the Greek government had underreported debt levels and deficits. Georgiou’s calculations showed the country’s deficit was even higher (15.4% of GDP), which was validated by Eurostat
Georgiou was hit with a series of lawsuits launched by Elstat board members, who were supported either directly or indirectly by successive Greek governments and politicians in Athens.
He was also charged with dereliction of duty, mainly for refusing to allow members of Elstat’s board to approve the revised deficit numbers before sending them to Eurostat. Though initially acquitted on this charge in 2016, the case was reopened and he was convicted in 2017.
He then requested another trial and for key questions in the case to be brought to the Court of Justice of the European Union, which Athens rejected. The statistician is awaiting a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights on whether his rights were violated in this case.
The ECHR appeal—with an open hearing right now—concerns a civil defamation case brought by Georgiou’s predecessor as stats chief, who accused Georgiou of defamation for saying his own figures had been repeatedly validated and the integrity of prior reports had been questioned.
Under Greek law, an individual can be held liable for “simple slander” if what they say is true but hurts the plaintiff’s reputation.
Let’s hope the outcome of today’s hearing is a positive one. It isn’t just Georgiou’s future that hangs in the balance. Greece’s investment grade status and the integrity of EU statistics do as well.
There is no point developing new, improved EU fiscal rules if member states don’t allow their statisticians to calculate the numbers with the highest degree of integrity and without harassment.
@gpapak @atsipras @nicolas_veron @PatelisAlex @FerroTV @lisaabramowicz1 @SBloomRaskin @MMQWalker @mckonomy @jchatterleyCNN @SaraEisen @joannakakissis @daphnetoli @yanpal7
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