It is proving impossible again this year to submit the crop declarations made by farmers and breeders, on the basis of which more than €2 billion of Community subsidies are distributed each year and which form the basis for most important functions for producers, from their participation in schemes to getting loans, tax breaks and insurance for young farmers. Cause of the endless mess that the ND government has caused to the Ministry of Rural Development and to OKAY.
The mess started to become visible from 2020 but it was badly shaped last year, in the year 2023, the first year of implementation of the new CAP 2023-27, because the ND officials were changing like shirts in the Ministry of Rural Development and none of them found the time to do the necessary preparations, to work out the elements of a national approach based on the needs of domestic production and to take care of the changes in the IT system of OPEKEPE, the crucial organization responsible for the submission of crop declarations and the payment of subsidies.
Direct assignments
Since 2020 there have been complaints of political persecution of executives, payment delays or payments with errors and problems, while tenders were canceled, re-announced and finally direct assignments were adopted “not as a result of emergencies but simply pretensions”, as he openly complained three years ago months in his letter of resignation the president of ELGO-Dimitras Serkos Haroutunian.
With five changes of leadership in the Ministry of Rural Development and as many in the administration of OPEKEPE within five years, it is therefore no wonder that last year the government of ND was unable to issue the implementing decrees on time for the new program of “ecological schemes” of the new CAP, so that the producers know early on what they have to do and not lose subsidies, nor did he manage to prepare the IT system for the crop declarations to be made in March as they were always done and finally they were done in August. But it is surprising that the same thing is repeated this year.
Last year, because no one had explained to them what the CAP change meant, farmers were in for a nasty surprise when they realized at the end of the year that the money they got as basic support was too small. However, those who – and there were many – did not get paid at all due to OPEKEPE’s mistakes, while the local centers that manage crop declarations had no answers to give them, reacted more. Finally, it became known that instead of the 1.06 billion euros of basic aid that had been paid in previous years, in 2023, based on the new CAP, 829 million euros of aid was foreseen, but in the end even less was paid, 741 million euros, as somewhere 88 million were lost!
To collect the effervescence the then Minister of Rural Development Lefteris Avgenakis dismissed the fourth consecutive president of OPEKEPE Vangelis Simandrakosputting all the responsibility on him, but the checks that followed showed that the “hole” was even bigger and a huge fund of 250 million euros had been lost somewhere between the Ministry of Rural Development and OPEKEPE, but for this no one has given answers to this day .
European intervention
Complaint after complaint the case ended up with the Ombudsman, who harshly criticized the mismanagement of agricultural subsidies in the period 2022-23, until last April the European Commission intervened by imposing a fine of 283 million euros on Greece for mismanagement of agricultural aid payments in the years 2020-22 and placed OPEKEPE on 12-month surveillance for serious irregularities in its operation.
One would expect after all this that something would improve this year but in vain… In March OPEKEPE announced that the platform would be opened within the month to make crop declarations and payments correctly and on time this year, but four months have passed and the system remains closed.
Responding to the farmers who are reacting, the government claims that it provides an alternative solution for them to make the declarations on gov.gr themselves. The National Association of Agricultural Cooperatives (ETHEAS) and its president Pavlos Satolias however, they recommend to producers to avoid individual declarations and to make cultivation declarations at the special centers, as in all previous years, in order not to find themselves trapped in the errors and changes of the OPEKEPE IT system and lose their subsidies. In fact, they complain that according to all indications, the delay this year is due to “the dispute between the two companies that are a partnership of the technical consultant of OPEKEPE and since contractual obligations are not respected as defined by a document of the organization in the previous days, they should already be discounted in relation to the contract”. But the government gives neither solutions nor answers to ETHEAS.
Farmers must complete the IASC declarations by September 12 and payments should be made in October so that they have liquidity to pay the electricity, the agriculturist, the supplies, the oil. Otherwise, they have the only solution to increase their dependence on banks and the farmer card with 7.5% interest or to sell as much as they produce to the trader. But that doesn’t bother the ND government.
#Agricultural #subsidy #payments #air #OPEKEPEs #mess #stamp
