ATHENS (Reuters) -Greek parliament has voted in favour of setting up a committee that will investigate a government agency handling EU agricultural subsidies since 1998, following a scandal in which Greek farmers for years faked land ownership to receive the aid.
European prosecutors have found indications that farmers and state officials allegedly defrauded the European Union of subsidies for the use of pastureland at least since 2019.
In June, they referred the case to parliament – the only body that can investigate politicians – on suspicion that two former agriculture ministers from the ruling, centre-right New Democracy party, were involved in the case. They have both denied wrongdoing.
The case is hurting the popularity of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government, which came to power in 2019 and was re-elected in 2023 with a majority, polls show. Greek media reports have pointed to clientelism, or the trading of resources for political loyalty, as possibly motivating the fraud.
Late on Tuesday, parliament approved the government’s proposal to set up the committee to investigate the agency OPEKEPE, founded in 1998. The government controls 155 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament.
The main opposition, the Socialist PASOK party, which has 33 seats, and other leftist parties rejected the plan, accusing the government of stalling and digging up the past to cover up its responsibility.
They want a more powerful committee set up, that can directly charge ex-ministers and will focus on the European prosecutors’ case, instead of OPEKEPE’s operations over the years. They fear that delays could lead to the write-off of potential crimes under a statute of limitations.
Mitsotakis told parliament Greece has paid nearly 3 billion euros in EU fines related to the misuse of the farm subsidies over the past decades, calling OPEKEPE an “open wound” whose ills were timeless.
(Reporting by Renee MaltezouEditing by Bernadette Baum)
