The former head of Greece’s national statistical service (EL.STAT) was quoted by Financial Times on Wednesday as saying he was convicted of a misdemeanor count of breaching his duty for adhering to the “principle of professional independence as required by EU and Greek law.”
“…In Europe we do not put statistical results up for voting (by an entity’s board),” Georgiou, reached at his home in the United States, told FT.
An Athens appeals court said Georgiou was guilty of not convening board meetings to brief members, handing down a two-year suspended sentence, essentially a verdict without repercussions.
The latest chapter in the legal woes besetting the 57-year-old technocrat, who was president of EL.STAT between 2010 and 2015, again generated negative reactions on the part of European creditors, as his prosecution is viewed by some as a “witch hunt” based on political criteria and not legal grounds.
Handelsblatt also reported that Georgiou was targeted because he refused to “fiddle” with the numbers.
“It’s Kafkaesque; a form of political persecution,” was FT’s quote from Aris Hatzis, an Athens law school professor when asked about the verdict.
Critics of the Georgiou’s continued legal challenges charge that a populist-fueled view, alleging that Greece’s budget deficit for 2009 was intentionally inflated in order to engineer an IMF and EU bailout of the country, is the real reason behind the prosecution.
