European prosecutors accuse two former ministers of fraud with EU funds. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) is pursuing dozens of cases in which Greeks received EU agricultural funds for pastureland they did not own or lease, or for agricultural work they did not perform, thereby depriving legitimate farmers of the funds they deserved.
When an issue like the O.P.E.K.E.P.E. (Ο.Π.Ε.Κ.Ε.Π.Ε.) super-scandal dominates the news, we at The Liberal Globe usually avoid commenting. As a rule, we wait for the issue to progress a bit and for the exaggeration and sentimentality to separate from the information and the fact.
But as I said before, here we have a super-scandal. Something out of the ordinary. Something unique like a comet that passes by the Earth every few hundred years. And necessarily everything runs faster. At this point, we must explain what we mean.
This particular multi-million euro fraud scandal is in a class of its own among the various thefts and embezzlements that have occurred over the last half century, in this progressive cow that we euphemistically call the state of Greece. He is, let’s say, the “Michael Jordan” of financial scandals, and may the great athlete forgive us…
1. Ιt is not a scandal of one government. Many elements show that previous governments have also acted accordingly. However, we will have to wait for more evidence on this. In the meantime, of course, in the universe of Social Media and paid trolls, the well-known tactic of thieves has begun to unfold: your people also stole… yes, but you stole more… no, the others took the most…
However, it is undoubtedly not a scandal of one ministry or one politician. It is certain that many ministries and politicians are involved. And this is another peculiarity. So far, three ministries are definitely involved at the level of ministers, deputy ministers and general secretaries, plus several members of parliament. And as time goes by, we hear more and more taking their place in the pantheon of political honesty…
2. Τhis scandal has the characteristic of involving a lot, a lot of money. Don’t stop at the 415 million fine that has been announced or those that were confirmed during the SYRIZA government (2015-2019). The economic cost for Greece is so high that it is almost incalculable. Think about the fact that the money that was stolen went to thieves and not to the economy.
The (naive) initial goal was to support production. Unfortunately, farmers who struggle to make ends meet with their herds, livestock units or olive groves, instead of benefiting from these amounts, continued to live on the dark side of the moon, fighting with precision, usurers and a clearly hostile state system. Thus, entrepreneurship and production did not benefit at all. On the contrary, many of them will be forced to sell their fields or go bankrupt because they will not be able to meet their obligations and given that they did not receive any of this money.
But it does not stop there. By extension, the cost is borne by all citizens. Something like this, for example, imported cheeses in supermarket windows are clearly cheaper than Greek ones… And somehow the The citizen is deprived, but the state is also harmed more since imported products outweigh local products. And somewhere along the way, the picture of the real cost of this scandal is lost, since the damage becomes incalculable.
3. Τhis fraud has thousands of accomplices. The political disease of the rapist has created thousands of citizen thieves. Of course, these citizens also have responsibilities. But let’s be reasonable. Citizens and of course farmers are trying to survive. When theft is proposed by those in power, it is very easy to soften the resistance of the governed. Without this exonerating them.
4. Τhere is the social cost. Thieves show off the stolen goods (cars, houses, trips, etc.) in provincial societies where everyone more or less knows each other. Thus, state prestige is torn apart, and disappointment and despair spread like wildfire among honest businessmen and party-based hybrids of people. The mentality is being aggressively cultivated and sprouted that, “this is how things are”, “the parties are in charge”, “you do the same”, “no one catches them”, etc. a mentality that allows thieves (of all levels) to do it again and again. And just like that, we cease to exist as a legal society and we live as pariahs in the harsh reality of the mafia. With such procedures, pasture scandals like this, prove that in Greece the sheep vote…
And to a large extent, this social perception is accurate. While the claws of local justice are persecuting grandmothers with terleki, women who illegally sell onions, the father who threw a slipper at his daughter and listen, listen to the doughnut mafia!!! some foreign judges see the billions that condemn Greece to poverty, humiliation and worthlessness.
We have always believed at The Liberal Globe that it is a great mistake – perhaps even an explanation – that justice is presented as blind. For us, it should see perfectly. And even have the third eye, which is responsible for intuition and clarity of thought.
We have written before that in Greece they do not live in a democracy. Because the system that Greeks experience lacks the main mechanism of democracy. That of accountability. It is not the frequency of elections, the electoral system, the Constitution, etc. that guarantee freedom and justice for the citizen, but the commitment of the regime to accountability. And in Greece, this concept is almost cursed. Politically, Greece still lives in the era of the landlords. In the area (not the country) there are about a hundred landlords, a few thousand peasants and all the rest are their cronies, happy when they are not whipping themselves but their neighbor.
We do not know what will happen with the super-scandal of the filthy O.P.E.K.E.P.E. It may, as we mentioned at the beginning, disappear like a comet… But we know that even if they did not change the system, whenever the cronies rebelled, the earth was painted red…
