The EU could question the criteria that its member states used to calculate macroeconomic data and, as a result, revise published data. But for that to happen they will have to receive such data from the states, and Spain has not provided theirs as of yet. Spain expects to finalize their economic data it within several weeks, but not sooner.
Specifically, the European statistics agency Eurostat will receive data that will not be published until April 3. Further, more precise data will not be available until the end of the summer. Data from Spain?s budget review that was carried out during Q4 2011 will not be published until March.
How could the EU have doubted whether the Spanish government inflated its 2011 deficit figures if there were no statistics available to question? The EU cannot question the veracity of data that does not exist (that is to say, data that has not been compiled). The figure that the Spanish government's deficit is 8% of the GDP, which Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he learned about on December 27, is an estimation of where the budget's balance might stand and not an official figure from Spain's National Accounting department. So the statistic company Eurostat cannot even begin to question these numbers.
