A scandal involving the misappropriation of EU agricultural subsidies has led to resignations at the highest political level in Greece.<\/p>\n
The ministers for civil protection and agriculture, as well as a state secretary at the Ministry of Health, stepped down on Friday and have been replaced.<\/p>\n
Commentators warn that the revelations could seriously jeopardize political stability in the country. Almost all opposition parties are calling for the resignation of the government and early elections.<\/p>\n
The resignations followed investigations by the European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office (EPPO), which had requested the lifting of immunity for the ministers who have resigned, as well as for numerous MPs.<\/p>\n
All the parliamentarians and officials under scrutiny belong to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis\u2019s conservative ruling party, New Democracy (ND).<\/p>\n
The politicians in question are alleged to have attempted to favour their electorates and secure illegal subsidies. The conservatives have been in power in Greece since 2019.<\/p>\n
In recent months, authorities have been investigating hundreds of farmers who, together with staff from the now-defunct agricultural authority OPEKEPE, are alleged to have fraudulently obtained millions of euros in subsidies.<\/p>\n
The allegations range from embezzlement and computer fraud to falsification of documents.<\/p>\n
The European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office is responsible for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to justice criminal offences affecting the financial interests of the European Union.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A scandal involving the misappropriation of EU agricultural subsidies has led to resignations at the highest political level…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5101,5106,39,5102,40,5105,941,5100,3922,5107,5104,5103],"class_list":{"0":"post-5660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-agricultural-subsidies","9":"tag-civil-protection","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-european-public-prosecutors-office","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-german-chancellery","14":"tag-greece","15":"tag-greek-prime-minister","16":"tag-kyriakos-mitsotakis","17":"tag-misappropriation","18":"tag-political-stability","19":"tag-resignations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}