- The annual rent amounts to €2,900. Data Journalists uncover the “Olive Tree Leasing Contract.”
- The properties owned by the Air Force’s Shareholders’ Fund, located in the open areas of the military airport, raise many questions.
- Subsidies were granted for the years 2019–2023.
- The application for the aid payments was submitted through the Claims Reception Center. The owner of the center and his family members were on trial last Friday in connection with the grazing land case in Grammos.
By Vangelis Triantis
Data Journalists revealed today that a number of questions arise from a case of subsidy payments made through the Payment and Control Agency for Guidance and Guarantee Community Aid (OPEKEPE). Between 2019 and 2023, approximately €120,000 in subsidies were granted for 2,630 olive trees owned by the Air Force’s Shareholders’ Fund and located in the open areas of the Elefsina military airport. The subsidies were received by the wife of a senior OPEKEPE executive who leased the trees from the Air Force in 2019 to harvest their fruit, as detailed in the “olive tree leasing contract” published by Data Journalists. Notably, the leasing contract makes no mention of using the property to obtain subsidies; it only states that the lessee is entitled to harvest the fruit from the olive trees. The application for the subsidy payments was submitted through the Claims Reception Center, whose owner and family members were on trial last Friday regarding the grazing land case in Grammos. Let’s take a closer look at the details of this case.
The Leasing Contract
In August 2019, the Air Force’s Shareholders’ Fund signed an olive tree leasing contract with the wife of a senior OPEKEPE executive. At that time, her husband was the head of OPEKEPE’s Technical Inspections Department. He held this position until the summer of 2020. He then transferred to OPEKEPE’s Internal Audit Department.
The contract between the two parties involved leasing 2,630 olive trees located in open areas of the Elefsina military airport. The annual rent amounted to approximately €2,900. Two tenders had been held prior to signing this contract for the lease of these olive trees in January and February of that year. However, as stated in the agreement, no interested parties participated in the tenders. In May 2019, the relevant unit of the Air Force’s Shareholders’ Fund “conducted negotiations” for the lease. The only interested party was the wife of an OPEKEPE executive.
According to the contract, the lessee was responsible for the “exploitation of the olive trees” and had the right to harvest the olives from 2019 through 2022 — four “growing seasons” in total. The contract outlined specific obligations for the lessee. For instance, she was required to “tend to the olive trees,” “prune the suckers and, where necessary, the trees themselves,” and collect the pruned branches. She was also required to spray the olive trees with appropriate pesticides annually, among other duties. Furthermore, the lessee was responsible for all expenses related to cultivation, security, plowing, clearing, irrigation, pruning, care, fertilization, weed and pest control, fruit harvesting, and all other costs associated with managing the leased property. The contract explicitly prohibited the lessee from “subleasing or transferring use of the leased property, in whole or in part, to any other individual or legal entity, or assigning any rights or obligations arising from the lease to others.”
Subsidies Granted by OPEKEPE
In 2019, the lessee applied for agricultural subsidies from OPEKEPE as a newcomer to farming. By 2024, she had reportedly received a total of €117,000 in aid. Specifically, from 2019 to 2022, she reportedly received annual subsidies ranging from €25,000 to €30,000. However, in 2023 and 2024, the amounts dropped significantly to €735 and €1,150, respectively.
This naturally raises the question: Why would the Air Force lease olive trees to a private individual for just €2,900 a year — someone who then collected tens of thousands of euros in subsidies — rather than exploiting the trees for its own benefit? Furthermore, a close reading of the lease contract reveals no mention that the property could be used to apply for or receive subsidies.
More specifically, Article 4 of the contract states that the olive trees are leased without irrigation water, and Article 5 clearly states that any other use of the leased area is prohibited except for the intended use of exploiting the olive trees on the land.
Furthermore, the lease agreement states that if, during the lease period, an opportunity arises to exploit the land in a manner not specified in the existing terms, resulting in an increase in income, the lessee may submit a written request to utilize the land in this additional manner. The lessee must also propose a proportionate increase in rent, which will be evaluated for its benefit to the Air Force Shareholders’ Fund (MTA) in accordance with the Fund’s Board of Directors’ decisions and established procedures. This raises the question of whether the Fund’s Board of Directors ever made a decision to allow the use of the lease for the purpose of obtaining agricultural subsidies in this particular case.
Application submitted through center linked to grazing land scandal in Grammos
Notably, the application for the subsidy payments was submitted through a Claims Reception Center (KYD), whose owner and family members were on trial last Friday in connection with the grazing land case in Grammos. Paraskevi Tycheropoulou, then head of OPEKEPE’s Internal Audit Department, first uncovered this case in 2020. Tycheropoulou is the same OPEKEPE official whom, as reported in an earlier investigation by Data Journalists, the agency has been “targeting” with disciplinary reports and lawsuits. Rather than being rewarded for her work, she was effectively punished.
In 2020, Ms. Tycheropoulou formally informed Grigoris Varras, the president of OPEKEPE at the time, about this case. Varras, an associate professor at the University of Ioannina, was appointed to lead OPEKEPE in 2019 at the personal request of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Varras, a technocrat and academic, now serves as a special advisor in the Prime Minister’s office — a fact that carries symbolic weight. During his tenure, he referred several cases to the public prosecutor’s office, including one involving grazing lands in Grammos. In that case, several individuals had falsely presented themselves as tenants of pastures in the Grammos region. One of them was an Attica-based lawyer who was found to be leasing grazing land in Grammos from a Larissa resident. A relative of hers had done the same, leasing land in Grammos from the same Larissa resident who claimed to be the owner. They applied for national reserve subsidies using these plots in 2019. However, an OPEKEPE audit later revealed that the land in question had been classified as public property in previous years.
In this case, another detail came to light: the two applicants for grazing land subsidies were close relatives of the owner of a Claims Reception Center (KYD). These centers play a key role in the OPEKEPE subsidy process because they are responsible for submitting farmers’ applications for financial aid. The apparent coincidence in the Grammos case raised red flags for OPEKEPE’s leadership and the internal auditor investigating the matter at the time. The public prosecutor’s office launched a preliminary investigation, which eventually led to criminal charges being filed. Six individuals were indicted and referred to trial, including the lawyer and the former KYD owner.
“I didn’t notice the rent was only 10 euros”
The trial continued last Friday before the Single-Member Court of Appeals for Felonies. During their testimonies, the defendants claimed that everything had been done legally. However, the European prosecutor focused on the unusually low rent of just 10 euros per year for the grazing land in Grammos. Ultimately, it was revealed that the rate was 10 euros per stremma, which is roughly 0.1 hectares. The defendant insisted that she hadn’t noticed the amount.
Defendant: I made a mistake in not noticing it. I only saw the ten euros. Why would they lease one thousand stremmas for only ten euros?
European Prosecutor: But that’s what you signed.
Defendant: Yes, but I also paid for 2019. In 2020, someone told us not to pay because the deal didn’t go through.
European Prosecutor: What you’re saying sounds strange. You’re a lawyer and the other parties are experienced individuals, yet none of you noticed something so obvious?
Defendant: I didn’t notice it…
European Public Prosecutor’s Office investigation to continue through 2024
Meanwhile, the EPPO has been investigating OPEKEPE subsidies for grazing land for several months. The probe is focusing on subsidies granted between 2017 and 2024. A key question that arises is whether any of the involved employees acted under orders from their political superiors.
In other words, were there political directives to unlawfully grant EU subsidies to certain producers to satisfy electoral clientele? If so, this would constitute not only financial misconduct but also a massive political scandal.
Last March, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Athens filed a criminal complaint with the Athens Court of First Instance against 100 suspects for agricultural subsidy fraud. The fraud caused an estimated €2.9 million loss to the EU budget.
According to an official statement, these charges were filed in recent months following investigations into organized networks defrauding the EU by exploiting subsidies related to the use of grazing lands.
