Former top statisticians warn Georgiou’s prosecution may affect Greek market foray

The continued persecution of Greece’s former head of its statistical service, Andreas Georgiou, may compromise the country’s foray into the markets when its bailout program expires in August, around 80 former heads of national and international statistical agencies said in a public statement.

The former statisticians refered to the annulment of Georgiou’s acquittal for the second time by the country’s Supreme Court.

“One cannot but note that the continuing prosecutions of official statisticians for producing the statistics on the Greek economy that are relied on by the markets in their work must increase the risk perceived by investors and ultimately increase the cost of borrowing,” the statisticians said.

To prevent this development, they called on the government to make “a public and unambiguous statement” confirming its full acceptance of the reliability of the 2009 public debt and deficit statistics, produced by Andreas Georgiou and his colleagues in ELSTAT, using a methodology that "continues to be used to this day by official statisticians in Greece for accurately and independently monitoring developments in the Greek economy."

Georgiou's case will go before the Council of Appeals Court Judges for the third time, after the Supreme Court’s criminal section accepted a prosecutor’s appeal against his earlier acquittal.