“It shifts responsibility for Grazing Management Plans”
“Another minister of Mitsotakis declares before the Commission of Inquiry that he has not yet understood how the circuit within OPEKEPE operated, through which the “alisverisi” of land (from mainland Greece) and virtual livestock (from the “vigilantes” of Crete, as he has characterized them) was carried out” state his sources SYRIZA. “However”, the same sources add, “Mr. Livanos, after a question from the SYRIZA-PS rapporteur, Vassilis Kokkalis, was forced to admit that with the Georgantas Ministerial Decision (148/2022) in essence, the “blue” circuit of the virtual pastures was “washed away”. After all, the “problem” with fake pastures had been detected, as he claimed, by Mr. Livanos himself and he boasts that he tried to limit it. He also admitted that he too would “repeal” his own regulation (2021), which removed the restrictions that provided that nomadic pastoralists could only receive pasture within mainland Greece. This change allowed Cretan breeders to receive subsidized pastures outside Crete, creating inequalities and distortions”.
According to the same sources, “SYRIZA-PS has called on the Mitsotakis government to end this practice, to link grazing rights to real milk and meat production and to ensure that aid is directed to active livestock farmers.”
The SYRIZA sources also note that “To serve the government’s narrative of ‘chronic pathologies’, Mr. Livanos hypocritically apportioned the responsibility for the non-completion of the Grazing Management Plans to the SYRIZA and ND governments.”
They even ask the question: “Doesn’t he know that it was the SYRIZA government that, among other initiatives, took all the steps to change the pasture definition regulation that ultimately led to the OMNIBUS regulation in December 2017?”
They also emphasize that “The initiatives of the SYRIZA government, which included additional checks on the eligibility of lands, should have been used for the benefit of our livestock, but the government of N.D. appeared unable to proceed with the necessary actions for the effective implementation of the said legislative initiatives of the SYRIZA government which would result in a functional preparation and implementation of the Grazing Management Plans and would put a definitive end to the “Technical Solution”. According to the Law of the SYRIZA government, the Grazing Management Plans had to be prepared and approved by 31/12/2019 with a validity period of seven years and the possibility of their revision and re-approval after the end of this period. With the arrival of the ND in the government in 2019, the first Minister of Rural Development & Food, M. Voridis, amended the above decision giving a two-year extension until 31.12.2021 for the implementation of the Grazing Management Plans. The Grazing Management Plans were put into the refrigerator as a draft and have not been completed until today. In this way, an institutional vacuum was deliberately cemented on which the “blue” scandal developed in OPEKEPE”, the SYRIZA sources conclude.