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New farm subsidy regulations in force would prevent a repeat of the fraud scandal that\u2019s battering the conservative government, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Sunday.<\/p>\n
In a social media post, Mitsotakis also said he would provide details Monday of what he called \u201ca new start and a more dynamic confrontation with the deep state,\u201d following what he referred to as a \u201cnegative experience\u201d and a \u201cfailure.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Friday, three cabinet members were forced to resign after they were named as potential suspects in an investigation into the alleged fraudulent disbursal of European Union farming subsidies to party cronies through the now-defunct state OPEKEPE agency.<\/p>\n
A total 13 sitting lawmakers from Mitsotakis\u2019 governing New Democracy party have been named as potential suspects in the investigation by the European Public Prosecutors\u2019 Office. The politicians allegedly pressed compliant OPEKEPE managers to hand subsidies to select farmers \u2013 whose claims, in several cases, were based on fraudulent data.<\/p>\n
Mitsotakis said Sunday that following \u201cthe sick\u201d OPEKEPE\u2019s incorporation with the independent AADE tax authority, such \u201cfailures\u201d would no longer be possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cNowadays, for example, subsidies are digitally determined without any human intervention,\u201d he wrote in his post. \u201cAnd the necessary checks are no longer carried out by officials who are liable to be pressured, but instead by satellites that monitor crops and modern ways of counting livestock.\u201d<\/p>\n
The names of most of the politicians allegedly involved in the scandal, all from ND, have been forwarded to Parliament which will vote on whether to lift their immunity from prosecution.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n