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To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (17427)	12/2/2004 5:28:26 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

ECB´s Papademos says lessons must be learned from Greek deficit revisions Thursday, December 2, 2004 5:13:31 PM afxpress.com ECB's Papademos says lessons must be learned from Greek deficit revisions FRANKFURT (AFX) - ECB vice-president Lucas Papademos said lessons must be learned from the underreporting of Greece's budget deficit before and after it joined the euro Greece's deficits have been revised up sharply to levels above the stability and growth pact's 3 pct of GDP limit, and the country would not have qualified for euro entry if it had been relying on the data now available Papademos was governor of the Bank of Greece at the time of the country's euro entry in 2001 "We must learn from past experience in order to ensure that the kind of problems that have been identified do not occur again," Papademos told an ECB news conference [let me see if I have this straight. Greece lies, led by Papademos himself to get into the EU. Now after they are in, vigalance is needed to prevent anyone else (namely Turkey) from doing what Greece did. Is that it? mish] "It is very important that the weaknesses and insufficiencies in the provision of budget deficit figures are addressed effectively," he said "It is essential that we have complete and reliable data in order to be able to apply the (stability pact) excessive deficit procedure and in order to be able to evaluate the convergence of member states," he added Papademos said the professional capacity and independence of national statistics offices needs to be enhanced, while EU statistics office Eurostat should have greater powers to monitor and inspect the compilation of national data Meanwhile, ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet defended Papademos' role in the Greek deficit figures controversy The revisions partly reflect a change in the way that government expenditures on military equipment are recorded. In the past they were estimated on the basis of deliveries, whereas in the revised data they are being booked on the basis of cash payments Trichet said the Bank of Greece published deficit figures for both methods when the country was preparing for euro entry "It was not the duty of the Bank of Greece to decide itself what would be the right accounting procedure, but the figures were there and clearly there," he said