Our budget deficit for 2009 was 15.4% of GDP and Government debt was 127% of GDP, as revealed by Eurostat in its latest release.
Amazingly, although we have no credibility to lose anyway, Eurostat did manage to damage its own credibility by missing its own earlier confidence interval substantially. The ceiling had previously been set at 14.1% for the deficit and 122% for the national debt.
Amazingly, Eurostat was, er, unable to squeeze this work in before the second round of our municipal elections, even though the ballpark figure has been out for more than a month.
Presumably this was meant to foster stability by giving Yorgo (the Threesome's only credible counterparty in Greece) a boost in the polls. Instead the announcement has coincided with Ireland's final fiscal meltdown, for which I'm sure we'll get a lot of polite greeting cards, perhaps featuring leprechauns holding empty pots.
Sounds a bit like the way in which our Government put its foot in it in 2009 by reporting its estimates of the deficit and national debt right ahead of the Dubai Debacle.
The truth hurts, Eurostat, but it hurts less if you tell it all at once. MUPPETS
