Parties present witness lists in OPEKEPE farm funds fraud inquiry

[Intime News]

Ruling New Democracy, and absorption parties PASOK and SYRIZA released the lists of witnesses they want to testify successful the EU cultivation subsidies ungraded investigation connected Thursday.

Among the 74 radical projected by the Conservatives are each the Ministers of Rural Development and Ministers of Agriculture since 1996 arsenic well arsenic elder executives of OPEKEPE (presidents and vice presidents), the assemblage liable for the organisation of EU assistance since 1999.

The database of 91 PASOK witnesses includes Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, while the main absorption enactment is requesting that erstwhile New Democracy authoritative Popi Semertzidou besides beryllium summoned.

The database of SYRIZA witnesses comprises 69 people, including the premier minister, various different ND MPs and OPEKEPE officials.

The probe that archetypal revealed widespread fraud successful OPEKEPE began by the European Prosecutor’s Office successful the summertime of 2020. It indicated that farmers allegedly claimed ownership of nationalist lands and created fictitious rental agreements to person millions successful European Union funding.

Five high-ranking Greek authorities officials, including a curate and three deputies, resigned pursuing allegations of engagement successful the case.

In a abstracted but related case, connected 11 June the European Commission imposed a 415-million-euro good connected Greece for the systematic mismanagement of cultivation assistance from 2016 to 2023 – again involving OPEKEPE.