Hellenic Statistical Authority


The Hellenic Statistical Authority, known by its acronym ELSTAT, is the national statistical service of Greece.
The purpose of ELSTAT is to produce, on a regular basis, official statistics, as well as to conduct statistical surveys which:
In accordance with its establishing law, ELSTAT is an independent authority and it is not subject to the control of any governmental bodies or other administrative authority. Its operation is subject to the control of the Hellenic Parliament.

History

The agency was originally established as the National Statistical Service of Greece in 1956 by Legislative Decree 3627/1956. In 1986, Presidential Decree 224/1986 it was transformed into the General Secretariat of the National Statistical Service of Greece and became part of the Ministry of National Economy. Law 2392/1996 provided for the arrangement of issues concerning the access of the General Secretariat of the National Statistical Service of Greece to administrative sources and files, as well as statistical confidentiality issues.
On 20 October 2009, the new finance minister in the newly elected Cabinet of George Papandreou announced that Greece's budget deficit was expected to reach ~12.5% of GDP. On 8 January 2010, the European Commission published its report 'Report on Greek government deficit and debt statistics'.
On 23 April 2010 Prime Minister George Papandreou formally requested an international bailout for Greece. The European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund agreed to participate in the bailout. On 2 May 2010, the IMF, Papandreou, and other Eurozone PMs agreed to the first bailout package for €110 billion over 3 years. The third austerity package was announced by the Greek government.
As recommended by Eurostat, ESYE was dissolved and replaced by ELSTAT in July 2010 via Law 3832/2010.

General Information

The Hellenic Statistical Authority collects data pertaining to the population, health and social security, employment and unemployment, education, etc. The statistical data collected by ELSTAT are used by both the Greek State and international organisations, by enterprises, the scientific community, citizens and others.
ELSTAT employs 740 people working in the central office and in 50 Regional Statistical Offices located in various regions of Greece. The registered office of ELSTAT is in the Municipality of Piraeus.

Management

The President of ELSTAT is Dr Athanasios C. Thanopoulos, who was unanimously proposed for the position of the President by an international Committee of Experts. He assumed the responsibilities of the President of the Hellenic Statistical Authority in February 2016, by virtue of a decision issued by the Minister of Finance.

List of service presidents

;National Statistical Service of Greece
Term of OfficeFull NameComments
1956-1970Petros Kouvelis
1970-1972Stylianos Geronymakis
1972-1977Dimitrios Athanasopoulos
1977-1982Christos Kerperis
1982-1984Evangelos Kalampokidis
1984-1986Grigoris Kasimatis

;General Secretariat of ESYE
Term of OfficeFull NameComments
1986-1989Nikolaos Zachariadis
1989Dimitrios Kolliasfor 2 months
1989-1990Georgios Sykianakis
1990-1993Εmmanouil Kontopyrakis
1993-1997Theofani Zervou
1997-2004Nikolaos Karavitis
2004-2009Εmmanouil Kontopyrakis

;Hellenic Statistical Authority
Term of OfficeFull NameComments
2010-2015Andreas Georgiou
2016-...

Statistics

ELSTAT announces the results of its statistical surveys, in the Greek and English language, in various publications. Among these publications are:
In accordance with article 11 of Law 3832/2010, as in force, ELSTAT has the following responsibilities:
  1. It establishes and implements the annual statistical programme, produces and disseminates as the “National Statistical Institute”, in compliance to paragraph 1 of article 5 of Regulation No 223/2009, the official, national and European Statistics of the country, and conducts any kind of regular or ad hoc statistical surveys, censuses and studies.
  2. It represents Greece as the “National Statistical Institute” in accordance with paragraph 1 of article 5 of the Regulation No 223/2009 in the services of the European Union and in any other competent international organisation.
  3. It cooperates with the European Statistical Office – Eurostat and the other services of the European Commission, the National Statistical Institutes of the other Member States and the national authorities defined in the next paragraph, and with other international agencies and organisations on statistical issues and participates in the relevant statistical committees of the European Union and of other international organisations as the “National Statistical Institute”.
  4. It sees to the timely, reliable and effective dissemination of statistical information and to the promotion of statistical issues and economic research in the context of the country’s international cooperation.
  5. It cooperates with public and private agencies in Greece or abroad, such as educational institutions, research centers and non-profit organisations for the promotion of scientific research for statistical issues, the harmonization of methodology and the implementation of the statistical principles of the Hellenic and European Statistical Systems.
  6. It cooperates and consults with all the other agencies of EL.S.S. on the development of methods and systems for statistical purposes in their domains of responsibility.
  7. It develops, disseminates and coordinates the implementation of the European Statistics Code of Practice within the frame of EL.S.S. More specifically, it provides consultancy services concerning methodology issues and statistical tools to all other agencies of EL.S.S. and to any other public or private agency and undertakes statistical work on behalf of third parties, public or private agencies in compliance with community and international principles and practices so as a mutually accepted methodology is disseminated and implemented.
  8. It teaches its staff and that of other EL.S.S. agencies to acknowledge the principles and methods of production of reliable statistics for the European Statistical System.
  9. It sees to the continuous upgrading of the human resources available to EL.STAT. through training and seminars.

    Website

In the first half of 2020 the website statistics.gr was one of the most popular and reliable sources in Greek Wikipedia.