Greek authorities sent new revised figures over the country's Gross Domestic Product - based on the year 2000 - to Eurostat last Friday, Amelia Torres, EU Monetary Commissioner Joaquin Almunia's spokeswoman, said on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters in Brussels, the EU spokeswoman said new figures would be verified in the next few weeks by the EU's statistics agency and stressed that this was a regular procedure for all EU member-states. Mrs Torres noted that several member-states revised their figures for 2005, while Greece chose to revise its figures this year.

A verification procedure of each country's GDP was a very important procedure for the EU, to have a full image of the economic condition and performance of each member-state, Torres said.

A spokeswoman for EU Regional Policy Commissioner, Danuta Hubner, said the revised GDP would have any affect on funding from a European Regional Fund, to the extent of agreed funds in the period 2007-2013. She stressed, however, that funding from a Cohesion Fund would depend on the level of per capita GDP of each member.

The EU executive's spokeswoman said the Commission would re-evaluate economic figures of member-states included in a Cohesion Fund in 2010. If average per capita GDP in Greece was higher than 90 percent of the average EU rate, then the country would be no more eligible for funding in the years 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Source: Athens News Agency

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