Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday hailed his government’s decision to strip OPEKEPE, Greece’s troubled farm payments agency, of its authority, telling a cabinet meeting that a fresh round of subsidy payments proved the reform had worked.
The government disbursed €617 million to 530,000 farmers the previous day, exceeding its original target, with another roughly €60 million in so-called Pillar II payments expected the same day, Mitsotakis said. He credited the deputy prime minister, the agriculture minister and the head of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE), the country’s tax authority, for meeting the government’s commitments.
The payments followed a contentious decision to move responsibility for distributing European Union farm subsidies away from scandal-ridden OPEKEPE, the agency long tasked with the job, and place it under AADE. OPEKEPE has been at the center of a sprawling fraud scandal involving the alleged misdirection of EU agricultural funds, an affair that has drawn scrutiny from European and Greek prosecutors alike and shaken Greek politics.
“It was a reform that had to happen,” Mitsotakis said, arguing that the timely payments, which he said farmers themselves had judged credible, were the clearest evidence the overhaul had succeeded. He said more than €1 billion had been paid out since the start of the year, with a further round to follow in the autumn. The prime minister framed the change as a way to redirect money toward those genuinely entitled to it. The large majority of honest farmers and livestock breeders, he said, came out of the reform overwhelmingly better off.
Investigations and accountability
Mitsotakis placed particular emphasis on transparency and accountability, saying those who broke the law were now answering to the justice system at the initiative of his government and national authorities. He said 2,900 cases were under investigation, 1,151 prosecutions had been brought and five criminal organizations had been dismantled.
That, he said, was the best answer to those who had questioned whether the reform was sound. He also noted that only New Democracy party had voted for the measure.
A digital overhaul
Mitsotakis claimed that within a year, once new digital and technological tools were in place, Greece would have one of the most advanced systems for farm subsidy payments in the EU. He pointed to animal-tracking technology using ruminal boluses, electronic capsules placed in livestock to verify their existence, as a way to add transparency and reliability.
He acknowledged the process has been difficult and said the new application system farmers will use to declare their land and claim aid, needs to go online soon. The Prime Minister once again described the OPEKEPE farm subsidy scanadal as a “long-standing, cross-party ailment of the deep state” that was now being resolved without the catastrophic consequences some had predicted.
Political jabs
Closing his remarks, Mitsotakis said problems “do not take holidays” and that the government had to keep fighting them. He criticized his political opponents, saying that while the opposition was preoccupied with its own internal problems, his government was focusing on the problems faced by the Greek people.
Source: TA NEA
