BRUSSELS (AFP) - Greece's membership of the eurozone is not in doubt despite a damaging review of its budget data stretching back to before it adopted Europe's common currency, the European Commission said.
But the country could yet face sanctions from its European Union peers over the drastic revisions to the figures, EU economics commissioner Joaquin Almunia said.
"Unfortunately the data demonstrate that Greece was above the 3.0 percent deficit level throughout the period 1997-2003," he told a news conference after a meeting of eurozone finance ministers.
"Nevertheless it is recognised by ministers that the decision of the Council (of EU states) to let Greece into the euro was made on the best available data at the time and this decision is not put into question," he said.
Greece's entry into the eurozone in 2001 was largely based on the country's 1999 public deficit which, according to budget data presented by Greece in 2000, stood at 1.8 percent of GDP.
But Greece's conservative government, which took office in March, admitted earlier Monday that the country's public deficit had been in excess of the eurozone limit -- 3.0 percent of economic output -- all the way back to 1999.
According to several Greek press reports Monday, EU data agency Eurostat found after a major reappraisal that Greece's deficit for 1999 was 3.38 percent of gross domestic product.
Greece has already incurred the EU executive's ire for letting its public deficit surpass the 3.0 percent limit. Recent revisions have shown the scale of the problem to be much worse than previously thought over 1997-2003.
Almunia stopped short of saying that Greece could face the loss of billions of euros in EU aid as punishment for issuing dodgy data over such a long period.
But he said he planned to propose that the incoming European Commission open an "infringement procedure" against Greece which may yet see the country face financial penalties.
"Looking forward we have to do our utmost that such cases are not repeated in the future," he added, reaffirming his intention to draw up ways of improving the quality of EU statistics.
11/15/2004 - 23:49 GMT - AFP