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To: pogohere who wrote (113779)	9/9/2010 1:56:13 PM
From: pogohere	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

EU Probes Hidden Greek Deals as 400% Yield Gap Shows Doubt Sep 8, 2010 Four months after the 110 billion- euro ($140 billion) bailout for Greece, the nation still hasn’t disclosed the full details of secret financial transactions it used to conceal debt. “We have not seen the real documents,” Walter Radermacher, head of the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat, said in a Sept. 2 interview in his Luxembourg office. Eurostat first requested the contracts in February. Radermacher vows new toughness when officials from his staff head to Greece this month to come up with a “solid estimate” of the total value of debt hidden by the opaque contracts. “This is a new era,” he said. Greece is the only euro country that lied about using these complex swap contracts after Eurostat told countries to report them in 2008, Radermacher, 58, said. It also likely signed a greater number of individual agreements than any other euro member, based on information it has provided to Eurostat, he said. Greece’s debt was 115.1 percent of its total economic output last year, second among the 16 counties that share the euro, behind Italy’s 115.8 percent. “What the Greeks did was an absolute cardinal sin,” said Ruairi Quinn, former finance minister of Ireland who presided over the 1996 meeting where debt and deficit limits for countries joining the euro were set. “They deserve to be punished for it. I think they have been severely punished for it.” Doubling Deficit Estimate Greece has requested technical help from Eurostat for its statistics service, and data from the country now reflects guarantees and swaps that weren’t previously included, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said in an interview today. The statistics agency became independent from the finance ministry this year. There is “a clear political will for full transparency in everything,” he said. “There is a clear and complete break with past practices.” Confidence in Greece’s statistics and its ability to repay debt was shattered in October, when the country more than doubled its 2009 deficit estimate. The euro plunged, sparking questions whether the single European currency could survive. It has lost 15 percent of its value against the dollar since Oct. 20. Restructuring Debt Investors still don’t trust Greece. They demand yields more than five times that of Germany to hold 10-year Greek debt - a sign that buyers fear the country will have to reorganize its borrowing. (more) bloomberg.com