The decision to establish an investigative rather than preliminary committee proved correct, according to New Democracy, as the ruling party maintains it revealed the chronic nature of agricultural sector problems, majority party officials stated after releasing their findings on OPEKEPE. They emphasize that testimonies from key witnesses, including former Minister of Rural Development and Food Stavros Arachovitis and Paraskevi Tycheropoulos, revealed no criminal liability for former ministers Makis Voridis and Lefteris Augenakis. According to New Democracy’s briefing, the problems identified in the Organization are not circumstantial but chronic and cross-party, as the SYRIZA governance period is linked to serious responsibilities regarding proper implementation of the so-called “technical solution,” while revealing phenomena pointing to clientelist practices, including persons connected to PASOK – Movement for Change and its president, Nikos Androulakis, such as his godfathers from Crete.
What New Democracy’s report says about Voridis and Augenakis
• It was proven that Voridis never intervened in conducting audits, nor sought to interfere with audits or releases of specific tax registration numbers. Furthermore, implementing the technical solution given the situation that had developed by 2019 was the only path for any subsequent government. This was because grazing management plans or a series of other administrative acts that would lead to implementing any other solution had not progressed.
• Similarly, in Augenakis’s case, it emerges from the combination of evidence that the specific substance of complicity and/or moral perpetration in breach of trust cannot be substantiated. The acts falsely attributed to him stem exclusively from telephone communications by third parties and not from any action of his or other element.
The Minister’s urging of competent authorities to complete audits, release and pay only tax registration numbers that met legal requirements, maintain restrictions while simultaneously sending to Justice those tax registration numbers that did not meet legal requirements, does not constitute a criminally reviewable act, but an action fully aligned with the duty of exercising administrative supervision, the report states.
The New Democracy Government continues consistently with primary sector reforms, aiming for subsidies to go exclusively to honest and legitimate beneficiaries — farmers, livestock breeders, fishermen and beekeepers — protecting both producers and public interest, majority officials state.
The majority’s report includes information on the Committee’s operation
Specifically:
• The Committee operated for five months.
• 50 sessions were held, totaling approximately 350 hours.
• 76 witnesses testified, of whom 55 concerned the New Democracy governance period.
The scope of the procedure and number of witnesses demonstrate the government majority’s will for complete investigation of the case, majority officials state.
