The Greek statistics authority ELSTAT has formally complained that it was approached by State officials who requested that it “to delay introducing revisions to the [Excessive Debt Procedure] divs that take account of newly available high quality data”.
The complaint was included in the second annual report of the Good Practice Advisory Committee that was published in Wednesday. According to the allegations in the Committee’s report, ELSTAT was approached by the officials at the end of 2014.
The committee explained that the incident was “very disappointing” for two reasons, firstly because “it demonstrates that there is still a lack of awareness of the complete impropriety of approaching ELSTAT in this manner” and secondly because “it shows a lack of understanding of the obligation on ELSTAT to […] ensure at all stages that the choice of sources and methods is informed by statistical considerations only”.
