Sources of New Democracy blame the SYRIZA government for creating the conditions that allowed the OPEKEPE scandal, on the occasion of the testimony of the former vice-president of OPEKEPE to the investigative committee. Giorgos Apostolakis.
“What the former vice-president of OPEKEPE during SYRIZA, Giorgos Apostolakis, testified to the Inquiry, converges – and with the arrow – in one conclusion: the then SYRIZA government was not just indifferent, it laid the foundations for the entire problematic system of OPEKEPE, leaving behind loopholes, omissions and practices that today are revealed one by one“, claim the sources of the ruling party.
According to the same sources, when the majority MP, Dionysis Aktypis “asked because, although there was now fiscal space, the IT staff requested by the services were not hired“, the former vice-president of the organization replied: “We made proposals”, with the MP pointing out: “So the ministry did not listen to your suggestions”.
The majority sources also said: “The issue followed with the exclusion from the EU of 10 million hectares out of the 24 million declared by the farmers. Greece appealed to the European Court of Justice, was vindicated, and in 2017 the EU was again forced to accept low woody vegetation as eligible pastures. But again SYRIZA did not proceed quickly with the procedures. To a related question from Mr. Aktypis, the answer was that “we were waiting for the decision of the ministry”. It is noted that in order to solve the problem, the central distribution of the pastures of the whole country was finally implemented, the so-called “technical solution”.