Two Greek Ex-Ministers Suspected of EU Agricultural Funds Fraud
Source: Balkan Insight
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, EPPO, on Thursday said it had referred two former Greek Ministers of Rural Development and Food to the Greek parliament for suspected involvement in the fraudulent use of EU agricultural funds
EPPO is investigating alleged organised fraud with agricultural funds involving officials of the Greek Payment and Control Agency for Guidance and Guarantee Community Aids, OPEKEPE.
“During this investigation, information has emerged of the possible involvement of two former Ministers in aiding and instigating the misappropriation … of EU agricultural funds during the exercise of their official duties,” EPPO said in a press release on Thursday.
The alleged misuse of EU funds happened between 2019 and 2024.
EPPO did not name the ministers in question. But Greece’s public broadcaster, ERT, said that according to reports, the two former ministers are the current Minister for Migration and Asylum Makis Voridis and the MP Lefteris Avgenakis
The two former agriculture ministers have not commented on the claims yet.
Greece’s constitution tasks the national parliament with investigating and prosecuting wrongdoing by current or former members of the government.
Greek stockbreeders between 2019 and 2022 allegedly submitted false declarations to OPEKEPE of ownership of land or falsified leases of land, which they did not own or had not leased, damaging the EU budget by 2.9 million euros.
In the years leading up to 2024, the same individuals continued to file false livestock declarations to obtain access to public grazing land, which they then used to activate and sustain their payment entitlements.
After EPPO concluded that this practice may have been organised systematically with the involvement of the Board of Directors and officials of OPEKEPE, it conducted four searches in May, in Athens and on the island of Crete.
The Greek government dissolved OPEKEPE in May after the scandal broke, and transferred its payment and control functions to the Independent Authority for Public Revenue.
The EU Commission on June 11 fined Greece just over 415 million euros due to OPEKEPE’s systematic mismanagement of agricultural aid from 2016 to 2023. This fine is not connected with the latest alleged fraud but concerns disbursements made by OPEKEPE without checks or on-site inspections.
The original article: belongs to Balkan Insight .
