The cost of insuring Greek debt soared to a record as the euro area's budget deficit widened to more than double the European Union's limit and Greek figures were revised.
Greece's budget deficit rose to 13.6 per cent of gross domestic product in 2009, Eurostat said today.
Previous figures put the gap at 12.7 per cent. However, the deficit may turn out to be even higher than today's revised figures.
"Eurostat is expressing a reservation on the quality of the data reported by Greece, due to uncertainties on the surplus of social security funds for 2009, on the classification of some public entities and on the recording of off-market swaps," Eurostat said in a note attached to the data.
"Following completion of the investigations that Eurostat is undertaking ... in cooperation with the Greek statistical authorities, this could lead to a revision for the year 2009 of the order of 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points of GDP for the deficit and 5 to 7 percentage points of GDP for the debt."
Greek government bond prices and the euro fell after the data with the Greek/German 10-year government bond yield spread up at 542 basis points from around 516 bps at yesterday's settlement, surpassing the previous peak of 532 bps as the 10-year Greek yield hit a new high of 8.5 per cent.
"What concerns me is the general uncertainty about the Greek official figures. This affects market perception about Greece ... that one can't rely on the Greek statistics and that the deficit is revised up and up and up," said Giada Giani, economist at Citigroup.
The euro fell to around $1.3372 from around $1.3410 before the data.
Greek debt rose to 115.1 per cent of GDP in 2009 from 99.2 per cent in 2008, the Eurostat data showed.
The Eurostat note did not specify whether the revision would be upwards or downwards, but an EU official with knowledge of the data said: "It is likely to be upwards."
The Greek Finance Ministry said in a statement that the upward revision of the deficit was due to the downward revision of the estimate for GDP in 2009 as well as a reassessment of financial accounts of pension funds.
The ministry said it still aimed to reduce the budget deficit this year by "at least 4 percentage points" of GDP, but economists said the changed starting point cast doubt on whether Athens would cut it to 8.7 per cent of GDP as earlier planned.
"It does raise the issue that the starting point for this year's measures is now 1 per cent higher," said Chris Pryce, senior analyst for Greece at Fitch Ratings.
"There is uncertainty over whether the EU and the IMF would want additional restrictions, possibly in the form of back-up measures should it become apparent later this year that Greece will not meet its target," he said.
The Greek government has said it wants to bring the deficit down to 5.6 per cent of GDP in 2011, 2.8 per cent of GDP in 2012 and 2 per cent by 2013 from 8.7 per cent of GDP in 2010.
Another EU official, who asked not to be identified, said the deficit reduction path in 2011 and 2012 for Greece may have to be steeper than originally planned as a result and that EU finance ministers would discuss this in June.
A mission of the IMF, the European Commission and the ECB, currently in Athens, is discussing the fiscal effort the country has to undertake in 2011 and 2012 to secure emergency loans if it cannot finance itself on the market.
"Look out for signs that the government might offer a voluntary debt-restructuring arrangement sometime over the next few months," Erik Nielsen, chief European economist at Goldman Sachs in London, wrote in a report.
The overall budget deficit in the 16 countries using the euro rose to 6.3 per cent in 2009 from 2 percent in 2008 and debt surged to 78.7 per cent of GDP from 69.4 percent.
In the whole 27-nation European Union, the aggregated budget deficit was 6.8 per cent against 2.3 per cent in 2008 and debt rose to 73.6 per cent from 61.6 per cent.
Agencies