Michalis Dimitrakopoulos: reduced losses for Tsiaras, Mitarakis, Papakosta from the report of OPEKEPE

“The scandal of OPEKEPE is real, the dissipation of millions of euros at the expense of real farmers and breeders is the tragic truth. Common sense is devalued and the goal is lost if we believe that a minister violated his constitutional duty to illegally support a farmer or breeder with 3000 or 7000 euros,” reads a press release from Michalis Dimitrakopoulos.

In his statement Mr. Dimitrakopoulos says the following:

“The European Public Prosecutor Pope Papandreou – rightly – ordered the preparation of a report to determine the amount of the alleged damage to European funds from the aid to farmers and stockbreeders. The above report was prepared by Mrs Paraskeva Tycheropoulou, whom I consider to be a competent and honest scientist. With regard to Mr Kosta Tsiaras, the above report limits the alleged damage from EUR 22,944 to EUR 3,145.

The above report, despite the tremendous reduction of the alleged damage, nevertheless has structural errors, for which Mrs Tycheropoulou is not to blame, because she was not properly informed.

Specifically: The arable-cultivable area of the Karditsa farmer was 23.19 hectares and not 26.4 hectares, as Ms. Tycheropoulou incorrectly calculated. Based on this material error, she did not correctly estimate that the farmer’s declaration of 1.32 hectares for “greening” support (tree rows, earthen canals, ditches, etc.) had a surplus of 0.16 hectares from the legal minimum of 1.16 hectares (23.19 *5% = 1.16). The embankments due to Janus did not exceed 5 meters in length and added together they had a total area of 0.011 hectares , i.e. they were covered by the upper surplus of 0.16 hectares , so all the aid was legal. It is important to point out that the aid -reported damage aggregated is 2971 euros and not 3145 euros, as incorrectly stated by Ms. Tycheropoulou.

As regards Mr. Noti Mitarakis, the above report of Ms. Paraskevi Tycheropoulou states that there was no damage to European property.

As for Ms Katerina Papakosta, for whom the alleged damage exceeded €120,000 and was considered a felony, Mrs. Tycheropoulou identifies a precariousness only in the allocation of coupled aid for the year 2021 of about €7000 .

The scandal of the OPEKEPE is real, the misappropriation of millions of euros at the expense of real farmers and breeders is the tragic truth. We need to increase the European Public Prosecutors in order to identify the fictitious farmers and livestock farmers who have plundered European and public funds.

Common sense is undermined and the goal is lost if we believe that a minister has violated his constitutional duty to illegally support a farmer or breeder with 3,000 or 7,000 euros !!!Which in this case the above amounts have not been found to be illegal.”