Former Greek statistics chief continues battle to defend debt crisis figures – POLITICO read full article at worldnews365.me

ATHENS — Greece’s former statistics boss Andreas Georgiou is continuing his more than decade-long battle to clear his name after Athens accused him of inflating fiscal figures during the debt crisis and thereby worsening the country’s financial woes.

On Monday, Greece’s Supreme Court will hear Georgiou’s appeal against a civil conviction for “simple slander” regarding remarks he made defending his calculations. It’s one of several legal cases Georgiou has fought since officials in Athens first questioned his figures and blamed them for the country being forced to accept larger loans and harsher bailout terms from its creditors.

Georgiou, who now lives in the U.S., has garnered widespread support from international economist and statistician groups, which argue he’s been used as a scapegoat by Greece’s political class, which refuses to recognize that the crisis was the consequence of years of fiscal profligacy.  

Observers also argue the case is a test of the Greek judicial system and whether it can maintain independence from politics.

“Georgiou did his duty like most other public servants around the world. He has been prosecuted and persecuted for his service to his country,” said Ted Truman, a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. “In the interest of their country, the Greek authorities must stop the ‘Big Lie’ and the Greek judicial system should play its appropriate role in this process.”

Numbers game

Georgiou, a former International Monetary Fund official, was appointed president of the Greek statistics service, Elstat, in August 2010 after it emerged that the Greek government had underreported debt levels and deficits, prompting the creation of the EU-IMF financial bailout program.

But Georgiou’s calculations that the country’s deficit was even higher than previously estimated, at 15.4 percent of GDP, sent shockwaves through the country.

His findings were validated by Eurostat, the EU’s official statistics office, but he faced domestic resistance for adopting EU statistical standards.

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 accused of artificially inflating the deficit figures as part of a plot to bring severe austerity to Greece, but these charges brought by Greek prosecutors were dismissed several times by different courts and this case was formally closed in 2019.

Georgiou 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 following a successful appeal by prosecutors, receiving a two-year suspended prison sentence.

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 now awaiting a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, expected soon, on whether his rights were violated in this case.

Monday’s appeal concerns a civil defamation case brought by Georgiou’s predecessor as statistics chief, who accused Georgiou of defamation for saying his own figures had been repeatedly validated and the integrity of prior reports had been questioned. 

EU investigations have indeed found that Greece systematically understated public spending and provided false data to Eurostat in the 2000s. But under Greek law, a person may still be held liable for “simple slander” if their statements were true and hurt the plaintiff’s reputation.

Georgiou was ordered to pay his predecessor €10,000 in compensation plus interest since 2014, as well as the complainant’s legal expenses. The court said he must also publish the text from the court ruling as a public apology in a Greek newspaper.

Georgiou has always defended his statistics and argued the head of Elstat has sole responsibility for fiscal figures. He’s been supported by the heads of national statistics agencies around the world and last month, statisticians held a rally in his favor outside the Greek Embassy in Washington.

Truman from the Mossavar-Rahmani Center said there are several important principles at stake in Georgiou’s legal cases.

“First is the integrity of the Greek statistical system that Georgiou reformed,” he said. “Then is respect for and the integrity of official statistics and statisticians around the world, demonstration that the Greek judicial system is no longer dominated by partisan politics, and to compensate for the damage that has been done to Georgiou’s reputation and personal life.”