Waves of resignations in the Greek Government, after a large European Prosecutor's Office inquiry
Makis Voridis resigned as Minister of Migration, Friday, June 27, 2025. Credit: Eliano Imperato / AFP / Profimedia
Several officials in the Greece's center-right government resigned on Friday, after appearing in a file of the European Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) on a massive EU agricultural budget fraud scheme, Politico reports.
Greek officials who resigned are the Minister of Migration, Makis Voridis, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tasos Chatzivileiou, Deputy Minister of Rural Development, Dionysis Stamenitis, Deputy Minister of Digital Governance, Christos Boukoros, and General Secretary for Development and Food, Giorgos Stratakos.
According to Politico, EPPO has to pay attention to dozens of cases in which the Greeks received agricultural funds from EU for pastures or did not hold them, or they did not lease, or for agricultural works that they did not carry out, thus depriving the farmers they deserved. This multiannual scam, of millions of euros, was the subject of a political investigation earlier this year.
Last week, EPPO sent to the Greece Parliament about the supposed involvement “in criminal offenses” of two former ministers who managed the portfolio for rural development and nutrition.
It is about Voridis, Minister of Agriculture between 2021-2023, who until today was Minister of Migration, and Lefteris Avgenakis, Minister of Agriculture during the period 2023-2024, currently a member of the Parliament.
EPPO folder has thousands of pages
According to officials who consulted it, the EPPO file has 3,000 pages and describes a “criminal organization” of state officials from Opekepe, the organization that manages the agricultural funds received from the EU, as well as from natural and parliamentarians who have exploited EU funds receiving illegally agricultural subsidies.
The file also describes how the organization operated, mainly in Crete.
Avgenakis and Voridis are accused of hijacking EU funds, but both denies the accusations.
The name of 15 parliamentarians appear in the file, of which 13 from the ruling party the new Democracy (ND) and one from the Pasok and Syriza opposition formations, but also the names of regional officials and former heads of state agencies.
In the indictment there are dozens of telephone interceptions, including high-ranking officials discussing how to remove European prosecutors from investigation and parliamentarians who request favors for their voters.
The file also contains the testimonies of two former Opekepe presidents, Grigoris Varras and Evangelos Simandrakos, who were fired by Avgenakis and Voridis because they tried to block payments in fraudulent cases. The ministers pressed them to make the payments, it is shown in the file.
“Numerous transcribed conversations included in the case file show the action of criminal groups operating for the purpose of illegally obtaining subsidies, as well as undermining and obstructing substantial audits that could prevent fraud,” a note of EPPO shows, according to officials who consulted it.
“The request of Varras's resignation (former president of Opekepe, no) seems to have stopped strengthening the relevant procedures and offered these groups the opportunity to continue these activities without obstacles,” the note shows.
Earlier this month, the European Commission fined Greece with about 400 million euros for the faulty management of EU agricultural financing and inadequate controls.
According to Greek and EU agricultural officials, other fines are expected. The Government of Greece has said that it will close Opekepe until next year, and agricultural payments will be made through the independent authority for public revenues.
