ATHENS, Greece — In a significant political upheaval tied to a cross-continental corruption probe, three senior Greek government ministers officially stepped down from their posts on Friday, as the European Union pushes forward with an investigation into widespread alleged fraud involving EU agricultural subsidy funds.
The departing officials include Agriculture Minister Kostas Tsiaras, Civil Protection Minister Yiannis Kefalogiannis, and Deputy Health Minister Dimitris Vartzopoulos. In public statements following their resignations, all three have outright rejected any claims of personal wrongdoing. They emphasized that their decision to leave office was made intentionally to remove procedural barriers and allow the investigation to move forward unimpeded.
At the heart of the unfolding scandal is an alleged scheme centered on a Greek national agency that failed to stop the misappropriation of millions in EU agricultural funding, via false subsidy claims submitted for non-existent land plots and unregistered livestock. This probe is being directly led by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), headed by chief prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi, who traveled to Athens last year to hold in-person coordination talks with Greek government leaders.
Currently, the EPPO is requesting the Greek parliament to lift legal immunity for 11 sitting Greek lawmakers who are implicated in the case. The scandal has already sparked intense public outrage across Greece, while also casting uncertainty over the already struggling domestic agricultural sector.
This resignation wave marks the second major shakeup tied to the fraud scheme, after five senior Greek administrative officials stepped down from their roles last year. In recent months, Greece’s farming industry has been roiled by escalating unrest: weeks of mass protests have been organized by farmers angered by delayed subsidy payments, which have been put on hold as a direct result of the ongoing investigation. Earlier this year, thousands of agricultural workers drove tractors into central Athens and major hubs of central Greece to stage demonstrations over the disruptions.
Within hours of the Friday resignations, Greece’s ruling center-right administration moved quickly to reorganize its cabinet, naming former European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas to fill the vacant agriculture minister post.