EU Prosecutor Requests Immunity Waiver for 11 Greek MPs Over Agricultural Subsidy Fraud

The European Public Prosecutor's Office requested the lifting of parliamentary immunity for 11 sitting New Democracy MPs in Greece as part of a widening investigation into fraudulent EU agricultural subsidies channeled through the OPEKEPE agency, with the case files covering a total of 20 current and former political figures across four separate dossiers. Among the 11 sitting MPs, Kostas Achillea Karamanlis — a New Democracy MP for Serres who previously served as Infrastructure and Transport Minister until his resignation in March 2023 following the Tempi rail disaster — and Katerina Papakosta face the most serious exposure, as they are being referred for felony charges. The alleged offenses concern acts committed in 2021 and center on moral instigation of breach of trust, with OPEKEPE executives named as the alleged physical perpetrators. According to source articles, the threshold that determines whether the offense constitutes a felony or a misdemeanor is whether the damage caused to OPEKEPE exceeded 120,000 euros, though a separate figure of 38 euros appears in web search results in a different context — both figures are attributed to their respective sources and cannot be reconciled from available reporting. The EPPO chief Laura Kövesi personally signed the detailed immunity waiver requests, as required by law, and the case file was transmitted directly from the EPPO to the Hellenic Parliament.

Ministers and former officials named across four case files The second case file, beyond Karamanlis and Papakosta, names nine additional sitting New Democracy MPs: Kostas Tsiaras, who currently serves as Minister of Rural Development and Food; Ioannis Kefalogiannis, identified in web search results as Civil Protection Minister; as well as Kostas Skrekas, Notis Mitarakis, Dimitris Vartzopoulos, Maximos Senetakis, Vasileios Vasileiadis, Christos Boukoros, and Theofilos Leontaridis. A separate first case file, processed under the ministerial responsibility law, concerns former Rural Development Minister Spilios Livanos — currently an MP for Aetolia-Acarnania and head of the Greek delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — and former Deputy Minister Fotini Arabatzi, who served as Deputy Minister of Rural Development during the first Mitsotakis government and is currently an MP for Serres. For these two former ministers, the case file was forwarded without evaluation directly to Parliament, as the Constitution requires. A third case file, already transmitted to the Athens Prosecutor's Office of First Instance, names two additional sitting MPs — Haralambos Athanassiou and Tassos Hadzivassiliou — for alleged moral instigation of breach of duty, with OPEKEPE executives again named as the alleged physical perpetrators. The Athens prosecutor's office will decide whether to forward that third file to Parliament to seek immunity waivers for those two MPs. Deputy Minister of Health Dimitris Vartzopoulos, whose name appeared in the case file, told SKAI television that he was unaware of his inclusion until the previous day and stated that his contacts with OPEKEPE were routine constituency work on behalf of farmers.

Government vows to accept immunity waivers, deflects resignation calls Government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis, who serves as Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister, stated that New Democracy's standing principle is to accept requests for the lifting of parliamentary immunity. „On principle, the government has a principle of accepting requests for the lifting of immunity, and this is evident from the statistical data.” — Pavlos Marinakis via iefimerida.gr He cited figures showing that 97 immunity waiver requests had been accepted since 2019, though a separate figure from a different briefing cited 48 accepted and 26 rejected over the last seven years — the discrepancy between these two counts was not explained in the source articles. When asked whether sitting ministers or MPs would be asked to resign, Marinakis declined to answer directly, saying the government had not yet received the case file and that it would be premature to comment. He drew a distinction between MPs who may have made phone calls on behalf of constituents and those who may have committed criminal acts, arguing that not every contact with OPEKEPE constituted an offense. „Let's not throw everyone into the fire, who may have been interested in their fellow citizens, but let those who did something that may have been illegal be evaluated criminally.” — Pavlos Marinakis via NEWS 24/7 Marinakis also pushed back against opposition claims that the government had lost its moral majority in Parliament, noting that the investigation itself originated from Greek law enforcement authorities during the current government's tenure.

Accepted: 97, Rejected: 26

OPEKEPE set for abolition as government touts structural reform The Greek government has announced plans to abolish OPEKEPE and transfer its functions to the AADE, the Independent Authority for Public Revenue, by the second half of 2026, a reform Marinakis presented as the structural answer to the patronage networks exposed by the investigation. The spokesperson argued that once OPEKEPE's functions moved to the AADE, political intervention in subsidy distribution would become structurally impossible. He noted that the opposition had not voted in favor of this reform. The case file reportedly contains transcribed telephone conversations in which political figures are heard requesting favors for specific agricultural producers, with investigators subsequently cross-checking whether the producers in question received irregular or illegal subsidies. According to iefimerida.gr, the total number of political figures under scrutiny across all four case files has reached 20, encompassing both sitting and former MPs from the governing New Democracy party.

OPEKEPE was established under Greek Law 2637/1998 and began operations on September 1, 2001, functioning as the state body responsible for distributing EU agricultural support funds under the Common Agricultural Policy. The agency operates under the supervision of the Ministry of Rural Development and Food. Investigations into irregularities in EU subsidy distribution have periodically surfaced in Greece, reflecting longstanding concerns about the administration of Common Agricultural Policy payments across EU member states. The EPPO, which became operational in 2021, was created specifically to pursue cross-border fraud involving EU funds, and Greece is among the member states subject to its jurisdiction.