Greece could lose 1.4 billion euros ($1.76 billion) of EU funding from 2007 to 2013 if a proposed revision of its economic output by 25 percent is approved, the European Regional Policy Commissioner said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday.
"Nothing is final," Danuta Hubner told To Vima newspaper, but warned that Greece's future EU funding may be endangered by its decision to upwardly revise GDP figures and it could lose the right to "cohesion funds" after a 2010 revision.
"Based on this hypothesis, Greece would lose about 1.4 billion euros from the Cohesion Fund," Hubner said. "This is assuming that Eurostat will accept the figures presented by the Greek government for the revision of GDP," she added. Greece announced earlier this month that it was reviewing its national output data to include parts of the black economy, boosting gross domestic product figures by 25 percent, a move Brussels said would take months to scrutinise and approve. If approved by Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, the revision may make the country, which joined the euro in 2001, appear more prosperous than before and less in need of EU funds, obliging it to increase its contribution to the EU budget.