{"id":11574,"date":"2026-06-18T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T17:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=11574"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T17:20:00","slug":"nikos-salatas-drops-a-bombshell-on-opekepe-the-simandrakos-tycheropoulou-period-was-not-investigated-by-the-european-public-prosecutors-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=11574","title":{"rendered":"Nikos Salatas Drops a “Bombshell” on OPEKEPE: The Simandrakos-Tycheropoulou Period Was Not Investigated by the European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikos Salatas<\/b> has filed complaints<\/b> regarding the activities of European authorities<\/b> in the case of OPEKEPE<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Mr. Salatas <\/b>made pointed remarks about a \u201cselective\u201d investigation<\/b> that left a specific period of the Organization\u2019s administration<\/b> unscathed.<\/p>\n

The issue of audits at OPEKEPE<\/b> has been brought back to the forefront of political and judicial current events by the Organization\u2019s former president, Nikos Salatas<\/b>, has brought the issue of audits at OPEKEPE<\/b> back into the spotlight of political and judicial current events, making clear criticisms of the way the prosecutorial authorities handled the matter. In a conversation with journalist Stamatis Zacharos<\/b>, Mr. Salatas <\/b>cited recent news reports that support his views, asking pointedly: \u201cDid you read an article today in the newspaper *Manifesto* about the guilty silence?\u201d<\/b>.<\/p>\n

The former president of the Organization described what came to his attention as soon as he took office<\/b>, claiming that he identified gaps and omissions in the investigations conducted by the European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office<\/b> regarding the management of past agricultural subsidies.<\/p>\n

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Salatas: \u201cDid you read an article today in Manifesto about the guilty silence? I went to OPEKEPE on February 3, 2025, and immediately discovered\u2014within five days\u2014that a period of OPEKEPE\u2019s operations, under the presidency of Simandrakos and with Tycheropoulou as deputy director, was not audited by the European\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/vgtRKo3SZl<\/p>\n

\u2014 tomanifesto.gr (@tomanifesto) June 18, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cI went to OPEKEPE on 3\/2\/25 and immediately discovered\u2014within 5 days\u2014that a period of OPEKEPE\u2019s under the leadership of former OPEKEPE President Evangelos Simandrakos and Deputy Director Paraskevi Tycheropoulou, was not audited by the European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office<\/b>\u201d, he stated emphatically.<\/p>\n

Nikos Salatas<\/b> continued his \u201cattacks\u201d against the judicial officials<\/b> handling the OPEKEPE<\/b> case, referring to \u201ccatastrophic mistakes<\/b>\u201d and drawing an institutional parallel between the situation and the Novartis case<\/b> regarding the lack of punishment for judicial misconduct.<\/p>\n

Journalist Stamatis Zacharos<\/b>, posing a direct question to the former president of the Organization: \u201cWill we see prosecutors being convicted? It\u2019s not common, which is why I\u2019m asking<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Salatas<\/b> argued that the justice system must scrutinize its own affairs <\/b>with the same rigor, as impunity in the past paved the way for new institutional abuses. \u201cThat\u2019s wrong. Because if a few people had been punished in the Novartis case, none of this would have happened<\/b>,\u201d he pointed out emphatically.<\/p>\n

This remark prompted the journalist<\/b> to seek further clarification on whether the two court cases were one and the same, asking: \u201cAre these similar cases?<\/b>\u201d<\/p>\n

Nikos Salatas<\/b> was quick to set the record straight, emphasizing that despite their differences, the common thread is institutional abuse<\/b>, which in fact takes on even more alarming dimensions in the current case involving OPEKEPE<\/b>. \u201cNot exactly. But even back then, we had those who strayed from the rules and were not punished. This one is even worse\u2014our own<\/b>,\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n

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Zacharos: \u201cWill we see prosecutors being convicted? It\u2019s not common, that\u2019s why I\u2019m asking.\u201d Salatas: \u201cThat\u2019s wrong. Because if a few people had been punished in the Novartis case, none of this would have happened.\u201d Zacharos: \u201cAre these similar cases?\u201d Salatas: \u201cNot exactly. But even back then we had people who went off the rails\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/h41EGcJdl6<\/p>\n

\u2014 tomanifesto.gr (@tomanifesto) June 18, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Concluding his remarks, the former president of the Organization noted that: \u201cI have no way of knowing who is behind this. I do know that the prosecutor\u2019s office has made disastrous mistakes<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nikos Salatas leveled accusations regarding the activities of European audit authorities in the OPEKEPE case.
\nMr. Salatas made pointed remarks about …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greece"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}