Three senior officials in the Greek government announced their resignations on Friday amid allegations they were involved in a scheme to obtain EU agricultural funds fraudulently.
The three officials who resigned are the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Ioannis Kefalogiannis, the Minister of Rural Development and Food, Kostas Tsiaras, and the Deputy Minister of Health, Dimitris Vartzopoulos.
Kefalogiannis and Tsiaras have not commented publicly on the allegations yet. Vartzopoulos told SKAI TV on Thursday that he had “always acted within the framework of the law” and had “never asked for any law to be bypassed”.
The fraud scandal centres on claims by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, EPPO that Greek stockbreeders between 2019 and 2022 submitted false declarations of ownership of land or falsified leases of land, which they did not own or had not leased, costing the EU budget 2.9 million euros.
The resignations came after the EPPO sent two case files and a request to the Greek parliament for “the lifting of immunity of 11 active members of parliament” in an investigation into an alleged organised fraud scheme involving public officials of the Greek Payment and Control Agency for Guidance and Guarantee Community Aids (OPEKEPE). The request concerns acts allegedly committed in 2021.
The two case files were forwarded to parliament on Friday by the Minister of Justice, Georgios Floridis. The first also includes the former Minister of Rural Development and Food, Panagiotis Livanos, and the former Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Food, Fotini Arabatzi, and the second 11 MPs.
Vartzopoulos has acknowledged that a court case appears unavoidable. “It goes without saying that all of us colleagues will have to request the lifting of our immunity,” he told SKAI TV, but added that he was certain that he and the others would establish their innocence in court.
Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis has already announced replacements for the ministers who resigned on Friday.
Margaritis Schinas, former vice-president of the European Commission for Promoting our European Way of Life from 2019 to 2024, will be appointed Minister of Rural Development and Food while Evangelos Tournas will be appointed Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection.
Deputy Prime Minister Kostis Hatzidakis said the government had acted decisively after receiving the case files from the EPPO.
“From the beginning, we said that responsibilities would be assigned and actions would be taken, after the documents were studied,” Hatzidakis told ERTnews Radio 105.8 on Friday.