OPEKEPE enters the clearance and transformation trajectory, with full support from the government and in direct cooperation with European authorities, as the Minister of Rural Development and Food said. Costas Tsiaras In an interview with SKAI.
The minister has confirmed that the Ministry is conducting an action plan, with the agreement of the European Commission and the European Commissioner for Agriculture, which aims to complete the organization’s complete consolidation.
The plan provides three basic sections:
1. The return of the information system management to OPEKEPE, with the aim of fully controlling and security.
2. The completion of the grazing plans, with the minister stating that “we are very close to completing auction issues” through information society.
3. The intensification of controls, with the aim of transparency in payments and preventing abuse.
At the same time, Mr. Tsiaras explained that removal of Nikos Salad OPEKEPE’s presidency is not related to the way it managed the organization, which it described as “best possible”, but to the wrong message sent, through its public statements, to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. “OPECEPE and the Ministry cannot be in dispute with the European Prosecutor’s Office. I had a personal meeting with the European Prosecutor and his staff and I assured that we would fully work together to reach the end, “he said.
Referring to the research, he stressed that it concerns actions and practices that have begun in the past decade and reaching until 2022. We currently have a judicial investigation by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in full swing, “he noted.
At the same time, the minister also made it clear that the money received illegally would be refunded, according to the judicial proceedings: “The money will be refunded – it is through a procedure that is foreseen,” he said.
Kostas Tsiaras also noted that OPEKEPE distributes more than 3 billion euros, of which 2.3-2.4 billion goes to 680,000 VAT and that “this is all about society, as it is not a matter of a party or a government”.
In fact, he pointed out that “the real danger is to prove that there were major problems – or worse, that there was no political will to deal with them.”
Finally, the Minister announced that a change in the ELGA regulation is being launched, with the aim of just and faster compensation for farmers: “We will attempt to change the ELGA regulation. We need to get out of the chronic anchors that afflict the producer and move on to a more functional and flexible model, “he said.