Anti-fraud office discovers EUR 3.4m ecological swindle

Date: 17/04/03

SOME €3.4 million was "misused or illegally obtained" by those involved in a 20-year programme aimed at repairing ecological damage caused by Greek farming, the EU's anti-fraud office OLAF has discovered.

The money had been released from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund to help create a network of natural parks in areas where farming had an adverse effect on the environment and to protect rivers from pollution.

Around €20 million has been spent on the project, which is 75 financed by the EU, during the past five years.

An OLAF probe, begun in January 2002, unearthed a number of cases where claims had been made for land such as afforested areas, which were not eligible for the scheme. The probe has included on-the-spot checks at five Greek firms and at one registered in Britain. According to OLAF spokesman Alessandro Butticé, the investigation found the "control systems in place were less than those necessary to ensure the strict application of the programme."

It concluded, too, that just five of the 18 firms involved in the scheme had received more than €6 million between them.

A dossier on the probe has been handed over to the judicial authorities in Greece. The European Commission's directorate-general for agriculture has also been told of the investigation's findings.

The EU's anti-fraud office OLAF has discovered that approx. EUR 3.4 million was 'misused or illegally obtained' by those involved in a 20-year programme aimed at repairing ecological damage caused by Greek farming.