At this time of year, lists are usually a cause for celebration but this festive season there was no Santa Claus bearing gifts for ex-Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou, PASOK and Greece’s political establishment as a whole. In fact, following revelations that the Lagarde list of Greek depositors at HSBC’s Geneva branch was doctored, all of the above will feel as if the Grinch has come along to steal Christmas, which came early thanks to the disbursement of new EU-IMF bailout funding on December 14.
The seriousness of the accusations against Papaconstantinou cannot be underplayed. In late 2010, when he was finance minister, he was given a CD by his French counterpart Christine Lagarde containing the names of more than 2,000 Greeks with Swiss bank accounts. Papaconstantinou was part of a government, led by George Papandreou, which had promised to clamp down on tax evasion. There is no evidence to suggest that all or any of the Greeks on the Lagarde list are tax evaders but under Papaconstantinou’s watch, authorities in Athens treated the data they had been given as if it was useless or even dangerous.
