Published: 24 Oct 2012 17:34 GMT+02:00 | Print version
Updated: 24 Oct 2012 17:34 GMT+02:00
Greece has asked France to re-send it a list of Greeks with Swiss bank accounts, Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said on Wednesday, after an original list delivered in 2010 apparently went missing.
"The economic prosecutor has asked me to request it again from the French government," Stournaras told Greece's parliament, referring to a list containing details of some 2,000 Greek account holders.
He added he had sent the request and is "expecting" an answer.
The list was originally acquired from France's then finance minister Christine Lagarde two years ago and is part of account data leaked by an HSBC bank employee in Switzerland.
Mystery has long surrounded the so-called "Lagarde list", with Greek officials claiming in early October that a copy of it had been found after the original version apparently went missing.
The first recipient of the data, former finance minister George Papaconstantinou, on Wednesday told a parliamentary committee that he did not know what had happened to the original version.
Greek officials though have long claimed that the information is unusable, because it had been illegally acquired. Deputy finance minister George Mavraganis recently called the list "industrial espionage".
Increasing anger over an expected new round of austerity cuts, imposed by Greece's international creditors, has put pressure on the government to seek the list and use it to crack down on potential tax dodgers.
Elected in June, conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has vowed to combat tax evasion, a chronic problem in the Greek economy.
The value of Swiss watch exports fell by 3.9 percent in May compared to the same month a year earlier as orders to Hong Kong and China fell dramatically, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) reported on Thursday. READ () »
Hunting stray cats year round remains legal in Switzerland after Swiss lawmakers on Wednesday voted against banning the practice. READ () »
A 40-year-old man was sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison, 15 years after he killed a 50-year-old gay taxi driver in his Geneva apartment by stabbing him 47 times with a knife . READ () »
Swiss lawmakers rejected on Wednesday a deal proposed by Washington to expose American tax dodgers and halt a raft a US lawsuits provided that Swiss banks that helped stash the cash pay massive fines. READ () »
Switzerland's senate on Wednesday again backed a deal with Washington to expose US tax dodgers and fine Swiss banks which helped hide their money, a day after G8 leaders agreed to chase cheats and corporate fiddles. READ () »
When I lost my job in Zurich three months ago, I felt like the world was collapsing around me. I felt inadequate and angry, and had a sense of shame about becoming unemployed in a foreign country. READ () »
At least four drowning deaths were reported in Switzerland on Tuesday amid the country’s continuing heatwave, which is drawing throngs of bathers to the country’s rivers and lakes. READ () »
The world's largest fully solar-powered boat, a Swiss vessel called "Turanor PlanetSolar," docked in New York on Tuesday during a mission to study the effects of climate change on the Gulf Stream current. READ () »
Swiss champion football team FC Basel may be in danger of losing one of its top players, striker Jacques Zoua. READ () »
Students at one of Zurich’s largest secondary schools were sent home on Tuesday after seniors trashed parts of the building in what was described in news reports as a “graduation prank”. READ () »
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