Politics

In its latest intervention in the case, the EPPO said it had referred information regarding the alleged involvement “in criminal offenses” of two former ministers overseeing the rural development and food portfolio to the Hellenic parliament. “During this investigation, information emerged concerning the possible involvement of two former Ministers in aiding and instigating the misappropriation (breach of trust) of EU agricultural funds during the exercise of their official duties,” the EPPO said in a statement. The statement did not name the ministers but Greek and EU officials, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, said it referred to Makis Voridis, who was agriculture minister from 2021 to 2023 and is now migration minister, and Lefteris Avgenakis, who was agriculture...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Five high-ranking Greek government officials, including a minister and three deputy ministers, resigned Friday following allegations of involvement in corruption over the mismanagement of European Union farming subsidies.The case stems from the alleged mismanagement of EU subsidies for agriculture between 2019 and 2022 by a government agency, known by its Greek acronym OPEKEPE, tasked with handling the funds. According to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, a “significant number of individuals” received subsidies through the agency based on false declarations, including claims of owning or leasing pastures that were in fact public land. The suspects continued submitting false declarations of livestock until 2024, maintaining subsidy payment entitlement, it added....

The case file names 15 MPs — 13 from the ruling New Democracy (ND), and one each from the opposition Pasok and Syriza parties — alongside regional officials and former agency executives. Brazen conversations Prosecutors requested wiretaps on the phones of OPEKEPE officials, among others, and the case file includes dozens of startlingly brazen conversations. These include high-ranking officials discussing how to remove European prosecutors from the investigation and MPs requesting favors for their constituents. The file also contains the testimonies of two former OPEKEPE presidents, Grigoris Varras and Evangelos Simandrakos, who were fired by Avgenakis and Voridis for trying to block payments in fraudulent cases. The ministers pressured them to make the payments, the file says. ...

The Greek prime minister has vowed to get to the bottom of how a scheme of fraudulent EU subsidy claims could have operated undetected in the country for years, as he admitted that the scandal had revealed “the state’s inadequacy” in dealing with corruption.Faced with revelations that “fake” farmers had been scamming designated agricultural funds to the tune of a reputed €290m (£249m), Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday a special taskforce would be set up to “immediately and exhaustively” investigate the illegal payments.The far-reaching scandal has already prompted the resignation of five senior government officials. One was the migration minister, Makis Voridis, a former far-right activist and prominent figure in the governing New Democracy party who was agriculture minister when the fra...

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was unusually contrite at the weekend. "We failed," he wrote on Facebook, promising to step up the fight against corruption — even within his own party, New Democracy (ND). Mitsotakis was responding to the latest scandal concerning the misuse of EU subsidies in Greece, which is currently being investigated by the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO). The scandal revolves around several hundred million euros in agricultural subsidies, which were paid out to applicants by the Greek government agency OPEKEPE. Examples include subsidies for nonexistent sheep and goats on the island of Crete and banana plantations on Mount Olympus. Ministers reporedly involved It is reported that this happened with the knowledge of two former agriculture minis...

Syntagma Square, Greek Parliament, Athens. Credit: Tomas Wolf / Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Four Greek institutes have been collaborating for months to unify the fractured center-left in Greece and work toward a common progressive political platform that could provide a credible alternative to the current party in power. INERPOST, the ENA Institute, the Initiative for the Progressive Alternative Governance Program, and the Alexis Tsipras Institute, have taken the lead in synthesizing party programs and policy proposals, aiming to respond collectively to growing public disillusionment and the latest political scandals shaking the New Democracy party under the leadership of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. This initiative was brought to the forefront by former Finance Minister Louka...

The government’s three-month ban on processing asylum applications draws criticism from human rights groups.Published On 9 Jul 20259 Jul 2025|Updated: 11 Jul 2025 02:14 PM (GMT)Updated: 11 Jul 2025 02:14 PM (GMT)Click here to share on social mediashare2ShareGreece has suspended the processing of asylum applications from people arriving by sea from North Africa for three months.The Hellenic Parliament approved the temporary measure on Friday despite strong criticism from the United Nations refugee agency and Europe’s top human rights official.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThe suspension passed by a 177-74 vote.The ban was passed amid a surge in asylum seekers reaching the Greek island of Crete and after talks with Libya’s Benghazi-based government to stem the flow were cance...

The rhetoric being used is martial: Thanos Plevris, Greece's recently appointed migration minister, has called the influx of refugees across the Mediterranean an "invasion." Several lawmakers from the ruling New Democracy party have used the terms "hybrid war" and "emergency." A large proportion of Greek media has said that the island of Crete is being "flooded" by irregular immigrants. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has promised that Greece will not permit a new channel for illegal entry into Greece and Europe to be opened up. "Just like in the region of Evros in 2020, we will do everything necessary to stop them," he wrote in his weekly Facebook post on Sunday. But more than anything, politicians and media alike are referencing the year 2015, when millions of refugees — mostly fr...

Asked how such radical solutions could be aligned with EU legislation, Plevris called it “a challenge.” “For our own society, the flows of illegal immigrants are very large. I cannot say that we can manage it,” he said, adding that on the island of Crete “we have every day 1,000 illegal immigrants who want to reach Greece, and in Libya we have 3 million. This means that we have to find solutions within a European framework, but also within our societies.” Some 9,000 people from Libya have arrived on Crete since the beginning of the year, almost double the number that landed on the island in the whole of 2024. Earlier this month the Greek government suspended the processing of asylum applications for those arriving in Greece from North Africa and said it will forcibly return them, ...

Stoic philosophy, born in ancient Greece, transformed Roman leadership and left a lasting imprint on the moral and political foundations of Western civilisation. Credit: Greek Reporter archive When ancient Rome conquered the Greeks and encountered their philosophical ideas, Stoicism became more than just a philosophical movement. The meeting between Rome’s rising power and Stoicism occurred amid the cruelty of conquest and war, yet somehow produced one of history’s most profound philosophical transformations. Scholars have spent years analyzing how a school of thought born in the streets of ancient Athens came to reshape Rome’s imperial power, with ramifications that echoed throughout Europe and beyond. How Stoicism entered Rome’s society Picture yourself in 155 BC, watching three Greek ph...