Greece escapes expulsion from single currency
Greece is to escape expulsion from the euro even though it was revealed yesterday that Athens gave false deficit figures to enable it to join the single currency.
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A European Union investigation revealed that Greece had broken the eurozone's critical deficit ceiling every year since 1998, contrary to its claim that it stuck to the rules. But the European Commission said yesterday there was no legal basis for throwing Greece out of the single currency, which it joined in 2001 on the back of the grossly misleading deficit data. However, Greece could face EU penalties in the wake of the most serious statistical irregularities since the launch of the euro.
José Manuel Barroso's new Commission must decide whether to seek fines against Greece in the European Court of Justice. It can also withdraw regional aid worth more than �500m ($646m, ￡350m) a year, or take other action under the stability and growth pact if the high deficit continues.
Last night it appeared Greece would try to avert EU punishment by pointing to tougher accounting criteria that had been applied to Greece retroactively and which were not applied when other countries were joining the euro. Nicholas Garganas, governor of the Bank of Greece, argued in an interview with the Financial Times that the methods used to measure deficits had been altered.
“I don't think the people of Greece and Europe were misled,” he said. “It is not really fair to draw such conclusions when we know that since 2000 the method of preparing, or calculating, budget deficits has changed.”
Eurozone finance ministers last night picked over the Greek scandal, hoping to draw lessons on how to rebuild confidence in EU financial data. The revelations have embarrassed EU leaders, with Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, describing them as “an enormous problem”.
Investigators from Eurostat, the EU's statistical arm, reported yesterday that Greece had provided false deficit figures as it prepared to join the euro.
They showed that in 1998 the deficit was 4.1 per cent of gross domestic product compared with the 2.5 per cent reported by Greece, while in 1999, the final year taken into consideration when the country joined the euro, the revised figure was 3.4 per cent compared with the official 1.8 per cent.
Eurostat had already reported how Greece consistently gave false figures in subsequent years, culminating in the claim in 2003 that its deficit was 1.7 per cent, when it was 4.6 per cent.
希腊险被逐出欧元区
希腊将逃过被驱逐出欧元区的下场，尽管昨天透露的消息说，希腊政府为加入欧洲单一货币区，曾提供虚假财政赤字数据。
欧盟一项调查显示，自1998年以来，希腊每年都违反欧元区至关重要的财政赤字上限，这与它所声称的遵守各项规则相违背。但欧盟委员会昨天表示，没有法律依据可将希腊逐出单一货币区。希腊于2001年加入欧元区，但这是基于严重误导的财政赤字数据。但在发生欧元启用以来最严重的统计违规行为后，希腊可能会面临欧盟的处罚。
若泽?曼努埃尔?巴罗佐(José Manuel Barroso)领导的新欧盟委员会必须做出决定，是否寻求在欧洲法院对希腊处以罚款。委员会也可以撤回每年价值达5亿欧元（合6.46亿美元）的地区性援助，或者在赤字居高不下的情况下，根据稳定增长公约采取其它行动。
希腊昨晚似乎试图避免欧盟的惩罚，该国指出，当时对希腊的情况追溯采用了更加严厉的会计标准，而其它国家在加入欧元区时并未采用这一标准。希腊央行(Bank of Greece)行长尼古拉?加加纳斯(Nicholas Garganas)在接受《金融时报》采访时辩称，用来衡量赤字的方法已经改变。
欧元区财政部长们昨晚对希腊丑闻进行了仔细审视，希望能就如何重建对欧盟财务数据的信心得出教训。这一丑闻的披露让欧盟领导人陷入尴尬，欧洲央行行长让-克洛德?特里谢(Jean-Claude Trichet)将这一状况描述为“一个巨大的问题”。
乔治?帕克(George Parker)布鲁塞尔、拉尔夫?阿特金斯(Ralph Atkins)和凯琳?霍普(Kerin Hope)雅典报道。
