È il grande scandalo agricolo greco grasso – ideato dall’élite politica e pagato dalla gente comune • Un enorme scandalo di sussidi europei ha tirato indietro il sipario per rivelare come opera il potere in Grecia

Αποσπάσματα:

>All these claims are as ludicrous as they are lucrative, and they point to an embarrassing scandal that is roiling Greek politics: the revelation that for years, enormous sums of EU funds were being pocketed by individuals claiming them as subsidies for agricultural work that did not exist.

>A [third of the EU budget](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/eu-wants-farming-subsidy-cap-budget-overhaul-draft-shows-2025-07-14/), more than is allocated to education and welfare and renewable energy combined, goes to subsidising the agriculture of member states.

>OPEKEPE is looking like a con conducted at the behest of the same political elite that landed Greece in such catastrophic financial waters to begin with. A European investigation into OPEKEPE, begun in 2020 and carried out by the Luxembourg-based European public prosecutor’s office (Eppo), is alleging a cash grab that may have been “[organised in a systematic manner](https://www.eppo.europa.eu/en/media/news/greece-eppo-probes-opekepe-officials-over-alleged-organised-agricultural-subsidy-fraud)” across the state.

>Starting possibly as far back as 1998, but appearing to ramp up with the election of the right-wing New Democracy party in 2019, Greece’s agricultural balance sheet was distorted. Auditors [were reportedly elbowed aside](https://www.politico.eu/article/greece-farmers-european-union-opekepe-pastureland-cap-common-agricultural-policy-2/) as plots of new farmland were registered to one individual one year, then transferred – on paper – to another the next. Crete was statistically tweaked into possessing half of Greece’s sheep, even as it became difficult to explain how they were producing [less than a 10th](https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1274375/millions-of-sheep-goats-but-wheres-the-milk/) of the country’s sheep milk. Bee populations [more than doubled](https://www.ekathimerini.com/in-depth/1273225/opekepe-the-scandal-that-keeps-on-giving/) on islands raging with fires or parched by drought. Two Greek former ministers are alleged to have spent years “[aiding and instigating the misappropriation](https://www.eppo.europa.eu/en/media/news/alleged-misuse-eu-agricultural-funds-eppo-submits-information-to-hellenic-parliament)” of EU agricultural funds.

>So many thousands of fraudulent or exaggerated claims now prompt unavoidable questions. Where did the money go? Who benefited? An investigation continues under Laura Codruța Kövesi, the head of Eppo, who endeared herself to Brussels when she was chief prosecutor of Romania’s national anti-corruption directorate by taking a blunt hatchet to her country’s political class, [locking up hundreds of Romanians](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/12/romania-corruption-chief-prosecutor-laura-codruta-kovesi–steely-vigilance) in the most sweeping anti-corruption drive in recent European memory.

>It is evident already that the ruling New Democracy party – the dynastic old machine of the Greek right – is deeply involved. Thirteen of its MPs [have been implicated](https://www.politico.eu/article/greek-farm-scandal-triggers-top-level-government-resignations/) in OPEKEPE’s deceptions (as have a Pasok MP and a Syriza MP). A cabinet minister and four deputies have been [forced to resign](https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/1273654/top-ministers-resign-over-opekepe-scandal/). For his part, the prime minister and New Democracy leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has said he has “nothing to hide” and [vowed to get](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/30/greece-farming-fraud-subsidy-scandal-investigation) to the bottom of the scandal, though he now [balks at the idea](https://www.politico.eu/article/greece-mitsotakis-farm-funds-fraud-eppo-opekepe-agriculture-farmer-pasture/) of a full-scale parliamentary investigation. He personally [received EU agricultural subsidies](https://www.efsyn.gr/politiki/kybernisi/369714_epi-8-hronia-pairnei-epidoma-energoy-agroti-me-aitisi-toy-o-kyriakos) from 2014 to 2021.

>The scandal has also pulled back the curtain to reveal how power in Greece operates. Three OPEKEPE heads who questioned financial irregularities were reportedly tossed out, one after he [attempted to block](https://www.politico.eu/article/greece-farmers-european-union-opekepe-pastureland-cap-common-agricultural-policy-2/) some 3,500 suspect subsidy applications, another after [blocking 9,000 payments](https://www.politico.eu/article/greece-mitsotakis-farm-funds-fraud-eppo-opekepe-agriculture-farmer-pasture/). Wiretaps conducted by European authorities recorded officials who feared concerns being raised yet insisted on fraudulent payments being waved through anyway. As European inspectors arrived in Crete, farmers were reportedly [warned in advance](https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/1274053/surveiled-phones-show-officials-and-inspectors-conniving-with-farmers/) and ordered to shift herds around to keep up appearances. Flushing the island with European subsidy cash appears to have made a considerable chunk of its voting bloc happy. This was the point, Mitsotakis’s opponents [have argued](https://www.in.gr/2025/06/30/politics/politiki-grammateia/mantzos-rotisei-o-mitsotakis-ton-frape-kai-ton-xasapi-poses-einai-oi-psifoi-stin-kriti-pou-allaksan-xroma/). Indeed, in one of the more seismic realignments of the Greek political landscape of late, Crete – a former leftist stronghold – flipped to New Democracy in 2023.

To guardian λέει χύμα για πολιτική ελιτ και τα εγχώρια αρδάκια μιλανε για φραπέδες, χασάπηδες και κρητικούς απο την αλλη μεριά. Ξεφτίλες, σας έχει πάρει χαμπάρι όλη η Ευρώπη ξανά.

> For six years now, Mitsotakis has assured Greek voters that he is clearing out decades of inherited rot from the Greek state. He talks of technocratic overhaul, a “new Greece”, a land airlifted out of the depths of financial destruction and managerial chaos. But crisis after crisis unfurls every contradiction in these assurances.

> In 2022, his nephew was forced to step down as general secretary amid the exposure of a ridiculous spyware operation – only for talk to begin of him returning to his uncle’s office two years later. In 2023, Mitsotakis’s minister of infrastructure and transport resigned following a train crash in which 57 people were killed after safety warnings over Greece’s rail system were ignored – only for him to slip back into his former parliamentary seat once the uproar of mass outrage had begun to subside.

> **Such scandals are treated like inconvenient public-relations dust-ups in which the problem isn’t a political class that cycles in and out of office with impunity but Greeks who demand consequences of those who lecture about accountability**

Ouch.