Statement by Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras
19/11/2017 - Press Releases
In reaction to an article in a Sunday newspaper entitled “The scandalous case of Yannis Stournaras” referring to the Bank of Greece Governor’s annual asset disclosures, the Governor issued the following statement:
“There is no inaccuracy whatsoever in my asset disclosures either for 2012 and 2013 (the two years mentioned in the article) or for subsequent years. The corrections to the square metre area of my vacation home on the island of Syros resulted from the application of the provisions of Law 4178/2013 regarding the change of use of auxiliary space into main space. The corrections were promptly disclosed, so there is no inaccuracy. Furthermore, the competent authorities have been aware of these facts for several years now, from both my asset disclosures and my income tax returns. So have the authors of the press article in question, who have been on my case for years now and who know better than anyone else that rarely has a citizen of this country been subject to more scrutiny than me or my family. Despite this, they decided to run this slanderous article, adding yet one more link to a chain of wretched journalism. In fact, just recently the publisher of this same newspaper received a suspended prison sentence for another slanderous article against my spouse”.
The Bank of Greece Governor went on to add: “Getting down to the grit of matter, it is a known fact that this newspaper has been persistently and obsessively targeting my family and me. It is no coincidence that it was launched just a few weeks after the Bank of Greece took transparency and corporate governance measures concerning a specific non-systemic bank in September 2016. The people who, directly and especially indirectly, run this newspaper have been attacking me and my family ever since. I want to assure them that, as they must already have realised, I will continue to work tirelessly and in close cooperation with the European Central Bank and the Single Supervisory Mechanism towards a modern, effective and transparent banking system that complies with European corporate governance rules”.