Greek farmers claimed EU subsidies for tens of thousands of non-existent cattle

Full text

How Greek farmers milked EU funds from imaginary cows

A POLITICO analysis of official data reveals gaps between subsidy claims and recorded livestock numbers.

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI

in Athens

Illustration by Arnau Busquets Guàrdia/POLITICO

ATHENS — Greek farmers claimed EU subsidies for tens of thousands more farm animals in 2024 than the country’s official records can account for, according to a POLITICO analysis of government data. The finding threatens to expand a wider Greek   farm-subsidy scandal . 

The analysis reveals discrepancies between a shrinking national cattle herd as reported by ELSTAT, Greece’s statistics agency, and the subsidies recorded by the Greek agriculture ministry.

Recent farm scandals have prompted the Athens government to promise overhauls and increase controls over agriculture. “Greek livestock farming is turning a new page,” Agriculture Minister Margaritis Schinas  said at a press conference in June. “It is fulfilling its commitments to the EU and entering a new era in the agriculture sector — one governed by rules, transparency and reliability.”

But the data discrepancies suggest there is further to go before the government has enough information to get a grip on the issue.

For 2024, data from the agriculture ministry shows that the Greek authorities paid out EU subsidies for about 260,000 lactating cows, according to figures cited by a Greek agricultural news site and confirmed by POLITICO with the agricultural ministry.

Because a lactating cow generally produces one calf a year, those cows should have added roughly the same number of calves to the national herd. The agriculture ministry data also shows that during 2024 about 70,000 cattle were slaughtered for meat, which also qualifies for subsidies.

Greece does not publish comprehensive figures for cattle that are culled because of age, declining productivity or disease. But three Greek cattle breeders told POLITICO that such removals amount to roughly 20 percent of the herd each year. Given that there were about 600,000 head of cattle in Greece in 2024, according to ELSTAT , that would be a decrease of about 120,000 animals.

Taken with the subsidies data, that estimate suggests the national herd should have grown by roughly 70,000 that year.

Instead, data compiled by ELSTAT through annual surveys show the national herd has been shrinking , from about 640,000 in 2023 to 600,000 in 2024 to 520,000 in 2025, according to the most recent figures published in June.

The discrepancy could be even larger, said Nikos Dimopoulos, chair of the Kavala Livestock Farmers’ Association. For instance, some of the animals that were slaughtered might have been imported rather than removed from the national herd. In most years, Greece is a net importer of live cattle and exports only small numbers.

“There’s no oversight and we cannot have an exact figure because there is no accurate data,” Dimopoulos said. Authorities only carry out spot checks or investigate following a complaint.

Similar discrepancies appear in Greece’s sheep and goat records. ELSTAT  reported  a population of about 8.8 million animals in 2025, while some 15.7 million were registered in the country’s Integrated Veterinary Information System, a  government database .

Two agriculture ministry officials, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the issue, said the ministry is not responsible for maintaining livestock records and relies on data supplied by municipalities. The country lacks a secure and reliable registry on which to base the payment of livestock subsidies, experts say.

“Unless we carry out a nationwide census of livestock to see what we actually have, we will not have a clear picture,” Dimopoulos said.

Complaints about the discrepancy between the recorded subsidies and the official size of the national cattle herd have been submitted to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office by the  recently formed  left-wing Elas party of former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, which conducted its own study of livestock numbers.

“Complaints have been sent to EPPO,” said Thomas Moschos, who heads the party’s agriculture policy. He added that the Agricultural Association of Kastoria, a small-scale farmers’ organization where he serves as president, along with other associations have already submitted cases to the authority.

EPPO, which declined to confirm it was examining the matter, is already pursuing dozens of cases involving people who allegedly received EU agricultural funds for pastureland they did not own or lease, or for farming work they did not perform.

In July the agency  announced  it had indicted 22 defendants, including four lawmakers from the ruling New Democracy party, as part of its investigation into agricultural fraud. The trials for the lawmakers begin in Athens in October. They all deny any wrongdoing.

Veterinarians and officials at OPEKEPE — the agency formerly responsible for distributing EU agricultural funds that was shut down  due to the farm-subsidy scandal — allegedly played a role in inflating livestock records, according to a document EPPO submitted to the Greek parliament asking it to lift the immunity of several lawmakers.

One EPPO case involving a New Democracy lawmaker concerns alleged subsidy payments to a breeder for more cows than he actually owned. According to the case file seen by POLITICO, the lawmaker called a senior OPEKEPE official to press for the payment and said a veterinarian had already altered the breeder’s animal numbers in the official veterinary database, increasing the subsidy for which he was eligible. The case will be heard on Oct. 2.

The scandal has prompted the government to introduce new controls such as an electronic identification system for sheep and goats using stomach capsules, known as boluses. The system is due to be piloted this year on farms with more than 900 animals, covering about 700,000 sheep and goats, before being expanded in subsequent years.

In March, Greece submitted an action plan to EU authorities setting out measures to prevent agricultural funds from being wrongfully doled out.

The European Commission said it would work with Greece to help “further improve the management” of European farming subsidies. “Good progress is taking place,” Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen said in a written statement. “But there is still work to be done.”