Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis reshuffled his cabinet on Friday (3 April) in a bid to contain a growing scandal over the alleged fraudulent use of European Union farm subsidies.
The move comes days after the EU’s Chief Prosecutor asked the Greek Parliament to lift the immunity of at least 11 lawmakers, including ministers, so they can be investigated over alleged organised fraud involving EU agricultural funds.
Agriculture Minister Kostas Tsiaras and Climate Minister Ioannis Kefalogiannis resigned ahead of the reshuffle, along with a deputy health minister, a party secretary and the government’s parliamentary spokesman.
European prosecutors have already charged dozens of Greek livestock farmers with falsifying land ownership to claim millions of euros in EU subsidies, allegedly with the assistance of government officials and conservative politicians.
In September 2025, the Greek government said police had found that hundreds of farmers had misappropriated EU subsidies worth at least €22.67 million (U.S.$26.54 million), after reviewing 6,000 out of more than 800,000 applications.
A few months earlier, the EU fined Greece €392 million (U.S.$455 million) over the mismanagement of agricultural funds by OPEKEPE, the Greek state agency responsible for distributing subsidies.
A minister and four senior officials in Mitsotakis’s New Democracy government also resigned in 2025 over their alleged roles in the fraud.
The fallout from the scandal prompted protests by Greek farmers in Athens in late 2025, after EU subsidy payments were delayed due to ongoing audits of funding applications.
OPEKEPE, which the Greek government is in the process of shutting down, handled more than €2 billion (U.S.$2.31 billion) in EU farm aid annually.
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