The Minister of Rural Development and Food has given a clear commitment to the clearance and institutional restart of the OPEKEPE. Costas Tsiarasduring his television interview on the show “Now Together” at Open, stressing that “OPEKEPE will move on to a new era, with complete transparency and complete accountability in the management of European resources”.

There are two big steps announced:

– In 18 months the country will have complete pasture maps. As the Minister has made known, after years of inactivity and abandonment of the project, “the auction issues are completed and we are now going through the competition phase so that Greece can acquire full grazing plans within a year and a half.” This development puts an end to the 2015 problematic “technical solution”, which allowed pasture statements by breeders who had nothing to do with these areas, creating distortions, injustices and reasonable questions.

– reinforcement of OPECEPE with 100 additional employees to control the aid. Kostas Tsiaras has announced that he is already in consultation with the Ministry of Education and Minister Niki Kerameos to provide direct human resources “that will enhance the audit process and shield the prestige of the organization”.

The minister acknowledged that OPEKEPE was carrying “many years pathogens”, but stressing that it “now operates with complete transparency” and that in cooperation with the European Commission’s Directorate -General for Competition, a plan to reorganize and restore the Agency’s credibility.

Answering a question about the possibility of OPEKEPE’s submission to AADE, as Mr Tsiaras reported in the media, he said that with the responsible Commissioner for Agriculture and Fisheries Mr. Hansen, many plans are being processed, one of which is. Always with the aim of better functioning the organization and distributing the farmers of aid with the fairer and in accordance with the EU rules.

Asked about the removal of Mr Nikos Salata from the presidency of the OPEKEPE Board of Directors, Mr Tsiaras reiterated that he was removed because he addressed the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in such a way that he sent the wrong message and stressed that the way he would stand by the government itself. In the most categorical way, he stressed that the government and the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning are determined to facilitate, to the end, in every way the work of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. “I have nothing to fear. I want this situation to clarify. Everything in the light! “, Mr. Tsiaras said and emphasized that the investigation is being done in collaboration with the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, that even the simplest complaint has forwarded it to justice but also that those who prove to be illegally received aid from OPEKEPE.

Referring to the investigations of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the minister underlined: “We are determined to bring cleansing to OPEKEPE at all costs – either political or labor. My responsibility is to facilitate justice to find the edge of the thread. If there are criminal or political responsibilities, they will be attributed. “