Sang-froid required in data probe
Former Prime Minister George Papandreou is obviously responsible for the fact that he ignored the warnings of his predecessor, Costas Karamanlis, and Bank of Greece Governor Giorgos Provopoulos regarding the country?s public deficit and spiraling finances. No one knows why Papandreou did not react faster to these warnings with stricter fiscal measures when he was elected and this is something he will have to be held accountable for.
However, it is crazy to concoct conspiracy theories according to which the Europeans ordered certain people in Greece to inflate the deficit so that stricter austerity measures would be taken. It is true that the deficit appeared bigger, but this is because Eurostat imposed the European methodology on the Greek authorities.
Hopefully, the judicial authorities will handle the probe into the allegedly cooked data with the requisite cool-headedness, and the country will not become embroiled in a vicious cycle of extreme political bickering that has nothing to do with the fundamental reasons why Greece is bankrupt.
