Something strange has been happening in Greece: animals seem to be appearing out of thin air. According to Greek government records, the sheep population on the island of Crete more than doubled between 2016 and 2022. Over the same period, other bizarre trends emerged across the country. Banana plantations supposedly blanket the slopes of Mount Olympus, high-security military airports have been converted into olive groves, and grazing land for goats and lambs now supposedly extends from the mainland into the crystal-clear sea.
These claims are as absurd as they are profitable, pointing to an embarrassing scandal shaking Greek politics: for years, individuals have been pocketing huge sums of EU subsidies by claiming payments for agricultural work that never happened.
A third of the EU budget—more than what is spent on education, welfare, and renewable energy combined—goes toward subsidizing agriculture in member states. The more animals a country claims to have, the more grazing land it can register, and the more money it receives. In Greece, farming subsidies from Brussels amount to around €2 billion a year, equivalent to about a quarter of the country’s inflated annual military budget.
On the surface, this scandal—named OPEKEPE after the Greek agency that managed EU farming subsidies—might look like an act of revenge. A decade after European technocrats imposed harsh austerity measures on Greece during its economic crisis, could clever Cretan farmers be swindling money back from Brussels by inventing millions of sheep?
It’s a tempting idea, but that’s not the full story. In reality, the OPEKEPE scandal appears to be a con orchestrated by the same political elite that led Greece into financial disaster in the first place. A European investigation, led by the Luxembourg-based European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) and launched in 2020, suggests the fraud may have been “systematically organized” across the state.
The manipulation of Greece’s agricultural records may have started as early as 1998 but intensified after the right-wing New Democracy party came to power in 2019. Auditors were reportedly sidelined as farmland was registered under one person’s name one year, then transferred on paper to someone else the next. Crete was statistically altered to account for half of Greece’s sheep, even though it produced less than a tenth of the country’s sheep milk. Bee populations more than doubled on islands ravaged by fire or drought. Two former Greek ministers are accused of years of “aiding and instigating the misappropriation” of EU agricultural funds.
The sheer number of fraudulent or exaggerated claims raises unavoidable questions: Where did the money go? Who benefited? The investigation continues under Laura Codruța Kövesi, head of EPPO, who earned Brussels’ trust during her time as Romania’s top anti-corruption prosecutor by aggressively targeting corrupt politicians.
It’s already clear that the ruling New Democracy party—the longstanding political machine of the Greek right—is deeply involved. Thirteen of its MPs have been implicated in the OPEKEPE scandal, along with one MP each from Pasok and Syriza. A cabinet minister and four deputies have resigned. Prime Minister and New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, for his part, has…He claims to have “nothing to hide” and has promised to uncover the truth behind the scandal, yet he now resists a full parliamentary inquiry. From 2014 to 2021, he personally received EU agricultural subsidies. A government spokesperson defended his actions, stating he was not required to give up his entitlement to the funding and that “the same rules apply to him as to any landowner.”
In Greece’s parliament last month, Nikos Androulakis, leader of the opposition Pasok party, challenged him: “Who are you kidding, Mr. Mitsotakis?” The Syriza party accused him in a statement of being either “complicit or blackmailed by his ministers.”
The scandal has exposed how power functions in Greece. Three heads of OPEKEPE, the agricultural payments agency, were reportedly dismissed after raising concerns about financial irregularities. One was removed after trying to block around 3,500 questionable subsidy applications, another after halting 9,000 payments. Wiretaps by European authorities captured officials acknowledging concerns but insisting on approving fraudulent payments anyway.
When European inspectors visited Crete, farmers were allegedly warned in advance and told to move livestock to maintain appearances. Flooding the island with EU subsidy money seems to have pleased a significant portion of the voting base. Opponents argue this was the intention. Notably, Crete, once a leftist stronghold, shifted support to Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party in 2023—a major shift in Greek politics. The government spokesperson dismissed any link between the fraud and election results as “unrealistic science fiction.”
This scandal represents another financial burden that Greek taxpayers will bear. Brussels has already imposed a fine of approximately €415 million, which will fall on citizens who are among the EU’s most overworked and third-lowest paid. To cover this amount, every one of Greece’s 10 million people would need to work eight hours at the minimum wage. Further fines are expected as the investigation expands.
For six years, Mitsotakis has promised to clean up decades of corruption in the Greek state, speaking of technocratic reform and a “new Greece” lifted from financial ruin and mismanagement. Yet, repeated crises contradict these assurances. In 2022, his nephew resigned from a senior role after a spyware scandal came to light—only for rumors to surface two years later of his return to government. In 2023, the infrastructure minister resigned following a train crash that killed 57 people, after safety warnings about Greece’s rail system were ignored.He was poised to reclaim his former parliamentary seat once the public outcry began to fade. In Greece, such scandals are often treated as little more than inconvenient PR mishaps—where the issue is framed not as a political class that rotates in and out of power without consequence, but as Greeks unreasonably demanding accountability from those who preach it.
Greece has already seen the narrative of a gleaming new prosperity—an emerging tech hub flush with foreign investment—prove illusory for most of its citizens. Now, there is a growing risk that the country will descend further into a reality where people are told the corruption that continues to devastate their finances and trust is simply another figment of their imagination.
Alexander Clapp is a journalist based in Athens.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about the Greek farming subsidy scandal as detailed in Alexander Clapps article designed to be clear and accessible
General Beginner Questions
1 What is this Greek farming scandal about
Its about a massive scheme where wealthy landowners politicians and celebrities fraudulently claimed millions of euros in European Union farming subsidies meant for small legitimate farmers
2 Who was involved in the scandal
The scheme involved a powerful network of people including politicians from major parties wellknown business figures celebrities journalists and even the Greek Orthodox Church Ordinary citizens ultimately funded it through their taxes
3 How was it funded by ordinary citizens
The subsidies came from the EUs Common Agricultural Policy which is funded by taxpayers from all member states including Greece So public money was stolen from everyone
4 What were these subsidies supposed to be for
They were meant to support genuine farmers who work the land helping to ensure food security maintain the countryside and provide a stable income for a difficult profession
5 How did they actually get the money
They used loopholes and fake documents to register large valuable parcels of land as farmland In reality the land was often unused or was a vacation home or hotel not a real farm
Advanced Detailed Questions
6 What specific loopholes did they exploit
A major loophole was claiming subsidies for land that was eligible for cultivation but not necessarily being cultivated They also exploited a system that based payments on the size and historical use of the land not on current production
7 How were the political elite involved
Politicians were not just beneficiaries they helped orchestrate the system They created and maintained the complex opaque rules that allowed the fraud to happen and protected the powerful players involved from scrutiny
8 What was the role of the lageies
Lageies are a key part of the scam They are fraudulent agricultural declarations submitted to the government People would declare land they owned as active farmland on these forms to qualify for subsidies they didnt deserve
9 What is an example of the fraud
A famous example is a wellknown television presenter who received over 500000 in subsidies for f
