Thessaloniki, Greece (AP) – Farmers in the north of the country despite government warnings Greece blocked traffic at border crossings on Wednesday in an escalating protest over delays European Union -supported subsidy payments linked to a corruption scandal.
Convoys of tractors blocked routes to North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey, forcing drivers to make long detours.
Over the weekend, hundreds of farmers took to the streets, blocking roads with tractors in several areas.
Protests farmers are common in Greece, but the latest unrest erupted over delays in subsidy payments following the revelation of widespread fraudulent applications for EU funds.
He caused a scandal resignation in June of five senior government officials and the gradual shutdown of the state agency that dealt with agricultural subsidies.
Michalis Chrisochoidis, the public order minister, said this week that the government remained open to talks with protest leaders, but warned that it would not tolerate the closure of major transit points, including ports and rail hubs.
Dozens of people have been arrested in Greece in recent weeks for allegedly making false claims in response to an investigation by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. The EU’s independent financial crime watchdog said at the end of October that the investigation was related to a “systematic and large-scale scheme of subsidy fraud and money laundering”.
Greece’s agricultural sector has been hit this year by delays in subsidies and outbreaks of goat and sheep pox, which led to mass culling of livestock.
Protest organizers on Wednesday vowed to expand the protests and called on the government to speed up a review of agricultural subsidy assessments.
“The poorer we are, the more determined we are. There is no going back. We have to solve these problems, otherwise there is no future for us,” Kostas Tzelas, a member of the national blockade committee based in central Greece, told AP.
“The money was stolen by opportunists,” he said. “The state should take the money back and give it to the farmers.”
