The issue of OPEKEPE, the Greek authority for the payment of EU agricultural subsidies, "remains an open wound" in spite of the government's efforts at cleansing and reform, government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said on Saturday in a televised interview with the programme "Dekatiani" on SKAI television. Pointing out that the government has succeeded in stamping out corruption in a number of other areas, including tax offices, prisons, fraudulent prescriptions and others, he said efforts to recover the money stolen from its rightful beneficiaries at OPEKEPE was complicated by the necessity to continue distributing subsidies to some 650,000 legitimate recipients in the primary sector.
"We must keep in mind that, yes, the stolen money should and must be given back...people have every right to complain, especially farmers, because they are the ones deprived of the money we have paid in fines all these years, in which our country paid 2.7 billion euros up until 2019," he said, while claiming that several government ministers since 2019 had attempted a clear-up in various ways.
The spokesperson presented the government's arguments in favour of a Parliamentary inquiry stretching back to the founding of OPEKEPE, saying it was necessary to examine what had gone wrong since its creation in 2001. He stressed that this inquiry will not gloss over the period when New Democracy was in power but shed light on this period alongside all the others.
According to Marinakis, the situation at OPEKEPE was yet another example of the chronic ills in post-dictatorship Greece, such as partisanship, clientelism and patronage, from which "no political party, in the broad sense, is exempt" and which were deeply damaging for the country. He pointed out that several of these long-standing ills had been successfully tackled by the government.
"The government that has closed - and continues to close - these wounds acknowledges that, in the case of OPEKEPE, more should have been done, and it is now moving to do more," he added.
Marinakis went on to criticised the opposition, especially main opposition PASOK-Movement for Change, for the stance they have adopted and accusing them of stooping to a "Golden Dawn-like approach" to the issues.
The spokesperson also touched on national issues and the criticism levelled at the government over this, the fees charged at ATM machines, the Thessaloniki International Fair, the student housing allowance and preparations for the wildfire season.