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The two main battlefields in Greek society in recent weeks have been the "Lagarde List" scandal and the fight for clearing Villa Amalia of anarchists. While the issue of Villa Amalia seems to be almost finished despite the backdoor political struggle connected with it the story of the "Lagarde List" seems to be a "Neverending Story."

The clearing of anarchists from the illegally occupied buildings around Athens and Thessaloniki takes the powers of one or two police squads whereas the unravelling of the story of the list of wealthy Greeks with bank accounts of millions of euro takes a lot of time and can cost the heads of many political figures from the recent past.

The wife of former minister George Voulgarakis who was in the government of Kostas Karamanlis is on the "Lagarde List". Voulgarakis had "forgotten" to declare the bank account with 117 thousand euro in the Swiss branch of HSBC in the name of his wife and will now be brought to justice by order of the transparency commission. He will have to answer the charges of concealment of income and attempted tax evasion.
 
The explanations Voulgarakis gave the special parliamentary commission in connection with the existence of the undeclared account in HSBC have proved insufficient. According to his testimony, the account belongs to his father-in-law and his wife is its user. The fact that the former minister had declared it earlier has driven the parliamentary commission to transfer the case to the justice.

The revelations connected with the "Lagarde List" cause new problems for former Finance Minister Yiannos Papadoniou, who served in the government of Kostas Simitis. His wife is also on the "Lagarde List" with an account in Switzerland, which contains 1.3 million euro.
 
The written evidence Papadoniou gave the commission states that the money had come from the former husband of his second wife. His name is Thodoros Ustrabasidis and he is a dealer of car parts in Greece. The money was transferred to the account in the name of the wife of the minister after the divorce and was used for the maintenance of their child. After Papadoniou’s stepson came of age in 2010, he became the account holder and the money was imported into Greece. The commission has not yet ruled on the case of Papadoniou because as Mega TV reports, two of its members have not had time to read the written testimony of the minister, although it is freely accessible on the web.

The present general secretary Manolis Kefaloyiannis had to give explanations before the same commission too. Unlike the cases of Voulgarakis and Papadoniou, the investigating parliamentary body accepted the testimony of Kefaloyiannis. The account in HSBC, for which he had to give an explanation, belongs to his wife and the funds in it were inherited. The tax on them was paid after the death of the relative who had left the legacy to his wife and Kefaloyiannis has submitted all documents as required by law to prove that.

Another minister of PASOK in the period 2009-2010, Petros Doukas, has to testify in connection with his actions with a bank account as well. The parliamentary commission on transparency has set a date for Doukas next week, when he will have to explain what happened to one million euro from it and why. According to the initial information presented by the minister, the money had been transferred from a deposit to an investment account and the documents on the transaction were submitted to the parliament in due time.

On the trails of an electronic file

The problems associated with the "Lagarde List" do not end with the involvement of political names in the search for undeclared amounts exported abroad. The first time the list was heard about was in October 2010. The finance minister at the time, George Papakonstantinou, announced its existence and vowed he would curtail tax unfairness.

According to the testimony of the employees in his ministerial office, he ordered his subordinates to separate the 20 names with the fattest bank accounts and then, to submit these names to the tax authorities to carry out a cross-check and to determine whether the deposits in the Swiss branch of HSBC have been the revenue from a declared activity or if they have been exported abroad to avoid taxes being paid on them. According to the general secretary of the tax services (SDOE), Yiannis Kapeleris, Papakonstantinou gave him a list of 10 instead of 20 names. Regardless of the number of names, no check was carried out either in 2010, or in 2011 to verify whether there was even one offender among the people on the list.
 
The original "Lagarde List" sent by the French government to Athens was on a CD (compact disc) as testified by the minister and confirmed by the French side. Papakonstantinou insists that he ordered a copy of the disc to be made on a USB stick, containing the exact number of names as in the original, to ensure that the list would not be lost if there was only one copy of it. He submitted it to the tax services and then lost its whereabouts. At the hearing before the parliamentary commission on transparency, Papakonstantinou acknowledged that he had given it to his staff to keep it and then, he could not find it.