Greek ex-minister expelled from party for “protecting relatives”

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Greek socialist party, Pasok, has expelled the former Finance Minister, George Papaconstantinou, over allegations he deleted the names of relatives from a list of Greeks who held Swiss bank accounts, BBC News reported.

The list is being used to investigate possible tax evasion by Greece's elite.

It was taken from HSBC bank and handed to the then French Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde.

Pasok said Mr Papaconstantinou "handled the list in the worst possible way".

Mr Papaconstantinou, who introduced Greece's first austerity programme as the country tried to rein back its escalating debt, denies any wrongdoing.

The list was passed to the Greek Finance Ministry by Ms Lagarde in 2010, when Mr Papaconstantinou was minister. But the Pasok government took no action and later claimed to have lost it.

In recent months, growing public anger over government inaction and its prosecution of a journalist who published those named has forced the authorities to re-examine the details of about 2,000 Greek individuals and companies who had accounts in Switzerland and who may not have paid tax on all their income.