{"id":470488,"date":"2025-10-03T07:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T07:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/470488\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T07:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T07:10:11","slug":"eu-subsidy-fraud-isnt-just-a-greek-problem-its-everywhere-warns-top-prosecutor-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/470488\/","title":{"rendered":"EU subsidy fraud isn\u2019t just a Greek problem, it\u2019s everywhere, warns top prosecutor \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Greece, K\u00f6vesi\u2019s team is investigating dozens of cases, including alleged misappropriation of EU funds in connection with a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/greek-leader-faces-political-backlash-rail-crash-mitsotakis-giannis-oikonomou-molotov-cocktails-rail-network\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">train accident in Tempi that caused the deaths of 57 people<\/a>. Greece\u2019s conservative New Democracy government <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/greece-european-public-prosecutors-office-eppo-ministers-christos-spirtzis-konstantinos-karamanlis-rail-crash\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rejected EPPO&#8217;s call<\/a> for action against two former ministers after the crash.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCorruption can kill. Tempi is one of those examples,\u201d she repeated.<\/p>\n<p>The government also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/greece-mitsotakis-farm-funds-fraud-eppo-opekepe-agriculture-farmer-pasture\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blocked a probe into ministers<\/a> allegedly involved in the snowballing farm fraud. EPPO is investigating how the scheme involved businesspeople, political figures and people working at the organization responsible for overseeing the distribution of the EU subsidies, a state agency called OPEKEPE.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOPEKEPE has become the acronym for corruption, nepotism and clientelism,\u201d she said during the press conference. \u201cJust like in the Tempi case, this criminal investigation could not develop its full reach because of the Greek constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Based on a peculiarity of the Greek constitution, only the national parliament has the power to investigate and prosecute members or former members of the Greek government. EPPO has raised the issue with the European Commission, as well as with the Greek authorities and said it had received assurances that this provision would change.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about the ongoing investigation in the Greek parliament, the EU\u2019s top prosecutor referred to high-profile attempts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/european-prosecutor-slams-attacks-and-intimidation-against-greek-farm-fraud-probe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to intimidate her investigators in Greece<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJustice cannot become a TV reality show. A cat with a bell cannot catch mice,&#8221; she said. &#8220;EPPO is here to stay. Despite intimidation attempts we are very proud of the EPPO team in Athens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Greece, K\u00f6vesi\u2019s team is investigating dozens of cases, including alleged misappropriation of EU funds in connection with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[6560,1194,78414,2575,8514,1396,2000,12921,299,5187,1699,6644,10779,33189,349,1450,475,156679,28649,5111,3209,7697,8720,7338,1398,2558,1200],"class_list":{"0":"post-470488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-balkans","9":"tag-budget","10":"tag-common-agricultural-policy-cap","11":"tag-corruption","12":"tag-customs","13":"tag-dumping-duties","14":"tag-eu","15":"tag-eu-budget","16":"tag-europe","17":"tag-european","18":"tag-european-union","19":"tag-farmers","20":"tag-farms","21":"tag-financial-crime-fraud","22":"tag-fraud","23":"tag-greece","24":"tag-imports","25":"tag-laura-codruta-kovesi","26":"tag-national-budgets","27":"tag-parliament","28":"tag-payments","29":"tag-ports","30":"tag-resilience","31":"tag-rule-of-law","32":"tag-shipping","33":"tag-slovakia","34":"tag-tax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115308988003267301","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}