THE O.P.E.K.E.P.E. announces that the digital file of the beneficiaries of the payment was sent to the Bank today at 3.58 p.m. with the amounts of the repayment of 30% of the basic income support for the sustainability of the year 2024, national reserve, redistributive and young age. The process was implemented entirely through gov.gr. and the beneficiaries’ accounts have been credited. Upon completion of the payment process, the Management of OPEKEPE points out:

The schedule of payments, which was set after the completion of the submission of the EAE 2024, was observed to the absolute extent. The timely and valid payment was a key priority and commitment of both the political leadership of the Ministry of Rural Development & Food, as well as the Administration of OPEKEPE. The credibility of the Organization is built step by step, payment by payment, and is strengthened by the fact that, after the gradual restoration of the information systems of the Organization, its recovery is founded on solid foundations, which goes through the return to regularity, from transparency and fairness to payments.

The payment was made after the completion of the cross-checks by O.P.E.K.E.P.E. for all IACS 2024 applications, after the convergence of the applicable rights, the application of the eligibility criteria, the registration of the monitoring controls throughout the territory, the distribution of pastures, as provided by the national, community regulations and the National Strategic Plan for the CAP 2023-2027 (SSKAP).

It is emphasized that for the first time, as provided for in the Union legislation and in the SSKAP, the system of imposing sanctions at the level of parcels of land was applied to various categories of beneficiaries. For example, we mention:

to 12,259 beneficiaries who declared pastures without livestock

in 24,931 where a cross-check with AADE revealed a discrepancy in the declared ownership data

in 5,299 who declared public, community, protected plots, etc. of land.

In total, today’s payment reached 440 million euros.

In particular, the following table lists the amounts per category of beneficiaries:

Reinforcement Number of VAT Amount after penalties and before offsets

30% OF BASIC INCOME SUPPORT FOR SUSTAINABILITY & NATIONAL RESERVE 569,332 246,683,512.40

SUPPORT FOR YOUNG FARMERS 47,150 22,060,353.00

SUPPLEMENTARY SUPPORT OF REDISTRIBUTIVE INCOME FOR SUSTAINABILITY 327,518 170,998,974.66

TOTAL 439,742,840.06

The implementation of the payment of the Basic Support of 30% of the year 2024 and National Reserve, concerns 569,332 beneficiaries from the total of EAE 2024 submissions.

In the initial processing, 581,743 TINs were included with rights corresponding to 811,648,691.23 euros. The rights activation rate reached 91.52%.

It should be noted that in today’s payment the partial recovery process of the unduly paid amounts for the year 2022 continued.

In more detail:

A) Regarding monitoring: According to the new CAP 2023-2027 it is mandatory to carry out universal controls (ie 100% of the territory) using the monitoring method.

More specifically, from the year 2024 the application of the monitoring system applies universally to the following regimes:

Basic Income Support for Sustainability (Basic Support).

Granting additional support of Redistributive income for Sustainability (Redistributive).

Supplementary Income Support for young farmers

Related Fortification of durum wheat, common wheat, barley, rice, maize, edible legumes, protein-rich legumes.

Special aid for cotton cultivation.

Compensatory Aids in areas with natural or other disadvantages (Equity).

In the context of the payment of the year 2024 payment, all the parcels of land were checked as they had been declared and digitized by the KYD and the applicants, until the deadline for submitting the EAE 2024.

In particular a total of 5,563,740 parcels of land throughout the country were checked using the monitoring method, pertaining to 604,805 unique tax identification numbers.

These resulted in findings in 345,605 parcels (6.2% of all parcels checked). These parcels were exempted from payment. These correspond to 157,205 unique TINs of which 7,459 TINs were not included in the payment. These parcels mainly concern urban areas, wasteland and pastures.

B) Regarding Transfers:

The Agency’s services were processed as a whole 42,577 transfer applicationsconcerning transmitters and receivers. From the above total, the control has been completed in 37,247 applications, a percentage of 89.54%. The 5,330 applications (of transferors and recipients) for which the completion of their audit is pending, mainly concern transfers due to death. For their final approval, it is necessary to present and check documents, such as wills, certificates of acceptance of inheritance, inheritance certificates, Court of First Instance certificates of non-publication of another will, etc., which either have not yet been presented, or have not been checked due to the particular volume and their importance. After the cross-checks, 33,229 applications (transferors and recipients) were included in the payment, a percentage of 89.20% of the definitively checked transfers.

As for 1683 breeders-transferors, who are involved in the total or partial transfer of their PE1 (Pasture Region) rights, they have not been included in the payment of the rest of their pasture rights because they have not received an allocation of pasture lands, until today. As far as 3,554 recipients of the transfer of grazing rights are concerned, they were included in the payment only for their grazing rights, which they already possessed and not for the additional ones they received with the transfer, because no additional allocation was made to them either. The Agency has already taken care of the additional distribution and mapping of the required pasture lands, so that all of the above will be included in the next processing of direct aid payments.

The remaining categories, which concern a total of 28,799 unique VAT numbers and which were not included in the payment, are:

Binding application due to VAT number 178

Application hold due to bank account number 1.045

Active farmer status under control 299

Commitments from Direct Aids for further control 2

Commitments from Technical Controls 147

Commitments from Rights 2.897

Total value of direct aid under €150 22,635

Rejection of inadmissible application 1.270

Rejection of application due to submission after death 265

Producers under the age of 18 do not have legal capacity 6

Binding application due to participation in an early retirement program 1

Binding of an application due to the spouse’s participation in an early retirement program 1

Premature successor with ten-year disqualification 43

Rejection of application due to submission after death 10

TOTAL 28,799

C) Regarding the National Reserve 2024:

Submitted in total 35,876 applications for the granting of a national reserve for the year 2024. After cross-checking, EA was approved and granted to 9,495 beneficiaries, who had submitted a complete electronic file with all the required supporting documents and cumulatively complied with all the conditions provided for by national and community legislation. The payment amount for them corresponds to 11,983,398.40 euros. For the 26,381 who were not granted E.A. 2024, the Organization continues the evaluation process and waits for all the required supporting documents to be submitted, in order to fulfill the required conditions and to grant E.A. 2024 to those who are finally entitled. They are expected to be paid in the next payment prepared by the Organization.

For those producers who have pending payments after today’s payment, O.P.E.K.E.P.E. will follow the prescribed procedures, as defined by national and community legislation for any corrections.

The organization’s announcement states:

O.P.E.K.E.P.E. remains firmly oriented to support producers, farmers and breeders, so that they can continue their productive activity. With steady and solid steps we move forward, into a new era. Time to establish fair rules for all, respecting national and community legislation, to ensure real farmers. O.P.E.K.E.P.E., is changing at a technological level, with a vision to improve its services, ensuring validity, speed, fairness in the granting of aid, with transparency and reliability, making a leap in the future for the benefit of the Greek breeder and farmer, the country and the Greek economy.