'Repayment does not eliminate the damage,' the public prosecutor's office said
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) has appealed a Greek court decision acquitting a farmer who repaid unlawfully received EU funds, in a case linked to a €1.7 million EU farm subsidies fraud that has rocked the country.
On Wednesday, a court in Athens sentenced 57 of the 58 defendants to suspended prison terms of between one and three years after convicting them of unlawfully obtaining agricultural subsidies from the CAP national reserve, a fund for young farmers and start-ups. The investigation also involves OPEKEPE, Greece’s former CAP payment body.
However, the court acquitted one woman farmer from Crete after accepting her argument that her criminal liability had been extinguished because she had repaid, with interest, the sums she had unlawfully received, amounting to around €30,000.
“The EPPO takes the view that repayment does not eliminate the damage caused to the National Reserve under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), whose resources are irreversibly depleted once unlawfully allocated,” the EU prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
