The Greek farming scandal “did not come as a surprise. It was not the result of an error. It was the natural outcome of a series of political choices, legislative distortions, and managerial failures,” says a source familiar with the workings of OPEKEPE – the Payment and Control Agency for Guidance and Guarantee Community Aid – back when it was just another acronym buried within the complexities of Greece’s deep-state machinery, obscure or outright incomprehensible to the general public.

The source knew what was happening because he witnessed it. For instance, he knew that in September 2020, a complaint had reached the prosecutor’s office in Fthiotida alleging a “subsidy party,” “golden pastures,” and “well-known figures in the local community, including relatives of government officials.”

The Illegal Subsidies of the Greek Farming Scandal

He was not alone. The complaint had been reported in the local press under the headline: “The Golden Pastures of Agoriani and the Silence of the Syndicate.” Prosecutors were aware, as was the government. In fact, in 2020, OPEKEPE’s then-president Grigoris Varras formally notified prosecutors of allegedly illegal subsidies disbursed between 2017 and 2020.

Varras, a professor at the University of Ioannina, had been appointed in October 2019. Shortly after freezing 3,500 taxpayer numbers (AFMs) linked to illegal subsidies and referring the case to the prosecutor, he resigned and was appointed to the Prime Minister’s Office.

At the time, Makis Voridis was Minister of Rural Development. Did he know? PASOK’s Rural Development Secretary Thanasis Petropoulos claims, “The illegal subsidies began under SYRIZA but exploded under New Democracy,” adding, “The system operated with the full knowledge of those politically responsible.” PASOK raised the issue again in May 2024 when OPEKEPE came under European supervision. Party leader Nikos Androulakis called it “yet another example of government failure in agricultural policy.”

FAt the time, the Minister for Rural Development and Food was Makis Voridis. Did he not know? According to Thanasis Petropoulos, Secretary for Rural Development and Food of PASOK, “the story of illegal subsidies began under SYRIZA, but it skyrocketed under New Democracy (ND).” He adds that “the scheme operated with the full knowledge of those with political responsibility.” PASOK frequently returns to the issue; in May 2024, OPEKEPE came under European supervision and PASOK President Nikos Androulakis declared it “yet another sign of the government’s failure in agricultural policy.”
How did the then-minister Lefteris Avgenakis respond? He accused the PASOK leader of lacking patriotic spirit. “Shame,” he stated. “I expected Mr. Androulakis to wear the jersey of the Greek national team.”

The Collapse of AGROGI

After the 2019 elections, the professor (Varras) was earmarked by the newly elected Prime Minister for the position of Secretary General at the Ministry of Rural Development. But the chemistry didn’t work with the first minister, Makis Voridis. Varras never made it into the Ministry and was placed at OPEKEPE, the exclusive agency responsible for disbursing EU agricultural subsidies in Greece.

The organization had been distributing European funds to Greek farmers since 2007 without issues, as long as subsidies were based only on animal headcount and didn’t require declarations of pastures. Two years earlier, the EU had requested the creation of a digital map of grazing areas. In 2008, AGROGI was tasked with the mapping, led by CEO Grigoris Varras. The organization collapsed due to politically driven hiring practices attributed to its then-president, prompting Varras’ resignation.

AGROGI’s “successor” was the company Neuropublic, run by Tasos Gargalakis, who is said to have spearheaded AGROGI’s dissolution. Neuropublic is the technical advisor to both OPEKEPE and PASEGES (Panhellenic Confederation of Agricultural Cooperative Unions).

The “Pasture” Gimmick

One of the hurdles the agency faced at the time was “imported”: the European Union — or, as some call it, “the Brussels bureaucracy” — only accepted as pastures areas with herbaceous vegetation, the kind common in Central and Northern Europe. In Mediterranean Greece, with its woody vegetation, declared pastures did not meet (Central) European standards, and Greece was fined €650 million.

Part of the loss was recovered in 2020 when the European Court ruled in favor of Greece, ordering the EU to return €466 million in fines imposed in 2013. In the meantime, in 2014, Agriculture Minister George Karasmanis of the Samaras government came up with the “technical solution”, an idea later implemented by the SYRIZA government and Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis. In practice, pastures were allocated without being tied to the actual location of animals. The gimmick was a necessity that became institutionalized — Greece had neither a cadaster nor forest maps.

This was supposed to be a “temporary measure”. But like many things in Greece, it gradually became permanent. One minister after another signed renewals of the gimmick. In a decision dated 9/8/2016, during Vangelis Apostolou’s tenure, the handwritten note read: “Regarding Crete and Central Greece, take from the Peloponnese; regarding Central and Eastern Macedonia and Thessaly, […] take also from Epirus.”
Another gimmick, same story: “Allocation of eligible pastures.” The decision dated 18/9/2019 bears the signature “Mavroudis Voridis.” Although he signed a land allocation document that legal experts say will soon interest the European Public Prosecutor, Voridis now claims to be “not responsible for OPEKEPE audits.” He also denies asking for Varras’ resignation. What’s certain is that he did nothing to prevent it. On the contrary, sources suggest that complaints from Voridis and Gargalakis about “inflexible” Varras were passed to Grigoris Dimitriadis, then-chief of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Parallel Payment System

A month before his resignation in November 2020, Grigoris Varras gave an interview to Ta Nea and journalist Angelos Skordas. The then-president of OPEKEPE said over €2.8 billion in subsidies had been paid to producers, and they were paid on time: “This happened,” he explained, “because in early October, we had internally completed a test payment, which allowed us to finalize disbursement just five days after the start of the agricultural fiscal year.”

Test payment? A source familiar with the situation inside the agency at the time now tells To Vima that “the parallel system was essentially a bypass” — a workaround so that “the agency wouldn’t rely solely on its technical advisor, Neuropublic.” The parallel system ensured that subsidies were paid promptly when 10 million stremmas (1 million hectares) of land were added using a scientific method not based on the “technical solution” but on a study by surveyor and agency executive Panagiotis Theodoropoulos.

Why resort to a parallel system? “Because the agency’s leadership feared that those who held a monopoly over the main system would block the payments to undermine them,” the source explains.

To Vima contacted Grigoris Varras, who declined to comment on this or any other detail related to his resignation. However, his resignation letter — which To Vima also reviewed — includes, in addition to an account of his accomplishments, the following statement:”I won’t dwell on the fact that the Organization was perhaps a hostage to circumstances, where the threat of non-payment was used for about nine years as a scare tactic to avoid staff evaluations.”

Where Did the €466 Million Go?

Sources note that a large part of the €466 million meant to be returned to Greek producers by EU court decision evaporated. Why? “The amount started shrinking due to older penalties. The €466 million became €220 million, then €180 million,” they say. The original sin, according to the same sources, was the “technical solution”. “The government is being blamed for losing €466 million it had won in court,” they assert, calling it “a political responsibility that doesn’t expire.”

Legal experts argue that if the European Public Prosecutor’s investigation goes as deep as expected, “the case might even warrant charges of criminal organization.” In Brussels, European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kövesi has a reputation as an official who “likes to put handcuffs on the high and mighty.”

Whether that reputation proves accurate remains to be seen — as does the claim that “Neuropublic ran the show at OPEKEPE without reporting to anyone.”

“The Fool of the Story”

Eyewitnesses to the goings-on at OPEKEPE say that Varas welcomed Gargalako at their first meeting “like a hawk.” The businessman asked him what he meant. “I don’t blame you, you’re just doing your job—the public sector is the fool of the story,” Varas is reported to have replied. Witnesses to the episode also say that Varas attributed the dissolution of the AGRORGI agency to a scheme aimed at clearing the way for private interests to step in and profit from “the golden-egg-laying sheep.” The state-run AGRORGI—so the argument goes—had already digitized 80% of the country’s agricultural data, employed 71 staff of whom 56% held postgraduate or doctoral degrees, and had reserves of €30 million in its accounts. So why was it shut down?

Today, OPEKEPE itself is being shuttered. According to reliable sources, the scandal had already begun troubling the Prime Minister’s office several months ago. One of the concerns was the possibility that the European Union would assign payment responsibilities for Greek farmers to a certified agency in another member state, as provided for by EU law. In order to avoid the national embarrassment of “OPEKEPE Bulgaria” handling Greece’s farmer payments, an alternative idea was put on the table: to assign the task to a Greek agency that both held EU certification and had the capacity to carry out inspections. That agency was the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE).

The “Technical Fix” Lives On

Even as the Prime Minister’s office searched for a way out at the time, there were those who argued for retaining the so-called “technical solution”—the workaround and temporary fix that was supposed to last just one year but has now persisted for over a decade. The technical solution survived under a string of New Democracy (ND) ministers—Voridis, Livanos, Georgantas, Avgenakis, and Tsiaras—as well as under SYRIZA administrations. It remained firmly in place even after Varas resigned, succeeded by Fanis Papas, a former ND MP and secretary of the “Agri-Food Partnership” cooperative of Central Macedonia. That cooperative’s president was former Deputy Minister of Rural Development Kostas Kiltidis, and its vice president was Giannis Mavroudis, then CEO of Gaia Epicheirein and nephew of Tasos Gargalakos.

Fanis Papas did not last long at OPEKEPE. He submitted his resignation just two and a half months after taking over the organization, citing personal reasons, to then-Minister Livanos. However, reports from the time pinpoint the source of the scandal to a “technical advisor who had monopolized control of the IT system for OSDΕ over the past 15 years” and who “was pressuring for the cancellation of the tender to support that IT system.” According to a document seen by To Vima, Papas canceled the international tender one week before submitting his resignation.

€7 per Application

Yet another acronym. OSDE stands for Integrated Administration and Control System, and according to the EU website, it “manages, monitors, and enables EU member states to control all area- and livestock-based interventions under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).” This system is where the Single Aid Applications submitted by farmers—EAE, for those in the know—are processed.

Those unfamiliar with the system may wonder why there’s such insistence on the so-called “technical solution.” For those who know because they see, the answer is as simple as a multiplication problem: “Take 660,000 tax numbers multiplied by €7 per application…”