Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
I've been very interested in the stats, but I'm about to give up since the OECD/Heritage Foundation numbers differ from what is on the Eurostat pages.

Eurostat has gov't worker pay at 29.5 billion, or 33% of the budget. The IMF says gov't worker pay and pensions is 75%. And yet the OECD numbers diverge.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/product_details/publication?p_product_code=KS-EK -10-001

by Upstate NY on Fri May 14th, 2010 at 08:26:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I think what is happening is that the oecd table includes social contributions as budgetary  revenue and social benefits as budgetary costs - while the Greek government tables exclude the costs and the benefits from their calculations in the main table - possibly because government has no direct control of these revenues, and theoretically simply "guarranties" most of the social benefit costs. The IMF then counts all social benefits as part of the wage bill, which is quite a trick IMHO. Hah, talking about cooking up numbers...

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake
by talos (mihalis at gmail dot com) on Fri May 14th, 2010 at 08:53:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Maybe I just don't know who handles it, but it shouldn't be this difficult to find reporting on Greek finances.

Do the EU and/or national laws not require governments to produce CAFRs or other audited financial statements for the public?

You shouldn't need to go digging through Eurostat or the OECD to find out how much they're spending on this or that.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Fri May 14th, 2010 at 09:21:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, Talos provided the Greek figures.

The problem isn't that the figures aren't readily available, it's that they differ.

Right on the page for Eurostat statistics you'll find a Eurostat report dated January 10, 2010 that explains the Greek statistic situation. The short of it: Greece gave bad predictive statistics each year, and then Eurostat conducted a methodological review (each year) that gave the actual statistics.

by Upstate NY on Fri May 14th, 2010 at 10:06:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Occasional Series