Man Who Revealed Depth of Greece’s Financial Quagmire Is Cleared & hops amtrak for nassau otb to set up the bets for the greek
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Andreas Georgiou, who brought Greece into line with EU accounting rules, is acquitted after eight-year judicial probe that angered Europe
Former Greek statistics chief Andreas Georgiou. PHOTO: PETROS GIANNAKOURIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATHENS—A Greek court acquitted the country’s former statistics chief of faking the budget deficit that deepened the country’s debt crisis, likely ending a marathon prosecution that has drawn widespread international criticism and raised doubts about the objectivity of Greek justice.
The Athens Appeals Court decided late Thursday to drop charges against Andreas Georgiou of artificially inflating the budget deficit for 2009, saying—after eight years of investigations—that there was no evidence of a crime.
The ruling will raise hopes in the European Union that Greece’s judiciary and political establishment are finally accepting that the country’s fiscal derailment was real, and not a conspiracy to subjugate the nation as Mr. Georgiou’s accusers alleged.
It was the third time that the court has ruled to acquit Mr. Georgiou, however. On both previous occasions, Greece’s Supreme Court ordered the case revived, amid pressure from parts of the political class to punish the man who revealed the full extent of Greece’s fiscal indiscipline.
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The Supreme Court could in theory annul the acquittal a third time, even though political support from Greece’s major parties for continuing to prosecute the former statistics chief appears to have ebbed.
Greece’s chances of overcoming the weaknesses in its economy and governance that contributed to its deep economic crisis hinge on its political class facing up to past mismanagement and drawing lessons for change. Elections due this year—possibly in May—will likely show whether leading politicians are shifting away from blame games toward a focus on overhauls.
Mr. Georgiou, a former International Monetary Fund official who now lives in the U.S., ran Greece’s official statistics body, Elstat, from 2010 to 2015 and for the first time brought Greece into full compliance with EU rules on reporting government deficits.
Greek governments in the 2000s systematically understated public spending and liabilities, EU probes have found. In October 2009, the government of then-Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, leader of the conservative New Democracy party, told the EU that the annual deficit would be 6% of gross domestic product—even though internal government data showed the deficit had already surpassed 10%.
When Mr. Karamanlis lost elections that month, the incoming government’s revelation that Athens had misled the EU, financial markets and Greek voters about public finances led to the unraveling of Greece’s bond market and marked the start of the eurozone debt crisis.
The full deficit for 2009 was over 15%, Mr. Georgiou reported a year later. The EU certified that he had applied European accounting rules correctly, fixing previous omissions.
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But supporters of Mr. Karamanlis have long insisted that Mr. Georgiou inflated the deficit. Some of his accusers said he was an IMF agent, implanted in Athens to justify and perpetuate Greece’s strict international bailout by the IMF and eurozone.
Mr. Karamanlis has never commented publicly about his fiscal record. He remains an influential figure in New Democracy, which polls suggest will likely win power in Greek elections this year.
Judicial investigations against Mr. Georgiou began in 2011 following public calls for a probe by New Democracy leaders.
Greece’s other main political force, the left-wing Syriza party of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, also long backed the theory that the deficit was inflated. More recently, however, Mr. Tsipras has said the 15% deficit was real.
Mr. Georgiou has insisted all along, with support from the EU, that he merely applied EU accounting law. International associations of statisticians have strongly backed him, warning that politically driven prosecutions of statisticians undermine the credibility of official data.
The nearly eight-year investigations of Mr. Georgiou have highlighted weaknesses in Greece’s judicial system, including its excruciatingly slow pace and the tendency of some judges and prosecutors to follow the political wind rather than evidence.
Other investigations have also been marred by political interventions, including probes into alleged bribery of Greek officials by Novartis AG that opposition figures say the government has stoked for political gain. The Swiss pharmaceuticals company has said it is cooperating with the investigation.
Figures in the current Syriza administration have put public and private pressure on prosecutors to investigate a list of their political enemies. When New Democracy leaders have complained to EU authorities that Syriza was politicizing judicial investigations, however, EU officials have pointed to the yearslong prosecution of Mr. Georgiou, which showed that neither of Greece’s main political parties was innocent.