As is well known, one should not punish the bearer of bad news, but Greece is doing just that. The country’s government and judiciary refuse to back down in their fight against statistician Andreas Georgiou. He was head of the Greek statistical office for five years and during this time revised the deficit figures upwards – a completely correct step, as many international bodies have confirmed. But Athens does not want to let that sit on itself. The government has just appealed against a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in March of this year, according to which Georgiou was not given a fair trial in one of the numerous trials against him.
The Greek government does not want to comment on the reasons. The appeal decision was made by the “interim government” in office in Athens after the May 21 elections failed to yield a majority; so there will be a re-election next Sunday. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his New Democracy party are the favourites. But the appointment by the interim government, which according to the constitution is not allowed to make independent political decisions, coincides with the line of the Mitsotakis government, which has been taking action against Georgiou before the European Court of Human Rights for some time.
“The appeal is bad news. If the government was looking for an opportunity to end this unfortunate row, it has now missed it,” said Megan Greene, chief economist at consultancy Kroll, which is about to join the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee. She is one of the many, mostly non-Greek, economists campaigning for Georgiou – because there is no doubt that he is to be made the scapegoat for a past of fake deficit numbers and politically motivated manipulations that the government in Athens says has actually been overcome should be. Finally, Mitsotakis is hoping to get investment grade status from the rating agencies, which would make Greek government bonds safer and debt financing cheaper. But has this past really been overcome?
Georgiou is not surprised
The government has been trying to distance itself from the case for years. She points to the allegedly independent judiciary, but at the same time she is quietly keeping the conflict alive with questionable means. Georgiou described the recent decision to appeal in an interview with the FAZ as “disappointing” – “but somehow it’s not surprising”. Since 2011, no fewer than seven separate court cases have been brought against him, criminal or civil. “I guess that makes me an enemy of the state,” he says with a bitter laugh.
Georgiou now lives in Maryland, USA, as a single parent with a thirteen-year-old daughter. At Amherst College he has a teaching position on “Statistics and Ethics”, but there can be no question of a life of prosperity. At times, his legal fees could only be covered by crowdfunding campaigns. He is a highly respected statistician and belongs to renowned international organizations in this field.
He had imagined his career path very differently when he took up his post as Greece’s chief statistician in August 2010. After working for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington for more than two decades, his life suddenly took a drastic turn. At that time, Greece had to bow to international pressure to finally ensure correct national accounting and to end the practice of regular statistical manipulations. So Georgiou came to Athens; henceforth Greece should produce clean, truthful statistics.