Greece’s prime minister said Sunday that alleged fraud of EU agricultural subsidies was “a chronic problem” in his country’s farm sector that started before his government’s mandate.
“Our government cannot take all the responsibility” in this matter, which is under investigation by the European Union, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told a press conference.
He said that the fraud — which Greek authorities estimate amounts to at least 23 million euros ($27 million) — started in 2016, before he came to power in 2019.
The EU probe, looking into allegations that fraudulent claimants syphoned off the money in massive graft, is mainly investigating the period since Mitsotakis’s conservative government took office.
EU investigators three months ago raided the Athens offices of the Greek government agency that handled the payments, OPEKEPE, which has since been closed down.
The EU probe has shown widespread abuse of funds handed out by OPEKEPE, which according to the government annually disbursed more than three billion euros, mainly in subsidies to 680,000 farmers.
A probe subsequently launched by Greek authorities examined 6,354 aid recipients, of whom 1,036 were determined to have received illegal payments totalling 23 million euros.
EU investigators have not yet given their own estimates of the alleged fraud or the number of suspect claimants.
Mitsotakis, speaking at an event in the northern city of Thessaloniki in which he presented his government’s economic plans for next year, admitted that his administration “did not manage to clean up OPEKEPE”.
He asserted that the funds wrongly disbursed “have started to be recovered” and that “the government is now on the right path to fix this problem”.
Those who illegally claimed EU subsidies mainly did so by making false declarations about agricultural land they claimed to control and false claims about livestock, the premier said.
The EU probe has found that most of the allegedly fraudulent subsidy claims came from the Greek island of Crete. Experts and media have pointed the finger at corruption and a system of patronage said to be rampant in the country.
Mitsotakis said that “the EU has investigations into numerous matters in all the (member) countries” and his government “has nothing to hide or to fear from such checks”.
mr/rmb/cw
