In light of the latest Greek example, the answer is a definite no.
The fact that EU farm subsidies are a hotbed for corruption in some member states has been well-known for a long time. There have been a number of cases where criminal groups, in close cooperation with top officials and influential politicians, have been revealed to be pumping subsidies out of the system for their own benefit. Brussels has been pretty much powerless to do anything to stop this practice over the past few decades.
The most recent case came to light in Greece, but we can also mention Slovakia, where a similar large-scale financial fraud was uncovered a few years ago.
As for Greece, the scandal dates back to 2017: people claiming to be farmers received EU agricultural funds for pastureland they did not own or lease, or for agricultural work they did not perform. The case involved not only employees of the former OPEKEPE – the Greek organization in charge of EU payments which was dissolved earlier -, but also two former ministers overseeing the rural development and food portfolio and their deputies, as well as other government officials – all of them affiliated with the ruling New Democracy party. (It should be noted that most of the disbursement practices occurred during the two consecutive New Democracy governments, starting from 2019.)
Beyond the fact that the damage is estimated at hundreds of millions of euros, the real problem is that, legitimate farmers were deprived of the EU subsidies they were legally entitled to.
The case was professionally and fully covered by The Greek Riporter in its article ’Ghost Farms and Dead Men: Greece’s Farm Scandal Uncovered’.
The abovementioned case in Slovakia also dates back to the end of the 2010s and is linked with the case of the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend in 2018. Kuciak gathered information, among other things, on suspicious business with EU land subsidies received by Italian businessmen residing in Slovakia. The investigation led to the highest ranks of public administration of Slovakia.
The difference between the Slovak and Greek cases is that while in the latter case, the European anti-fraud office OLAF subsequently paid special attention to similar criminal offenses, there has been no such action in Greece to date. All that happened was that in June 2025, the European Commission decided to impose a €415 million fine on Greece for the improper management and inadequate control of OPEKEPE subsidies for the period 2016-2023 and the Greek parliament decided to establish a special inquiry committee to investigate the scandal.
In addition, several top officials – including the migration minister, the deputy foreign minister, the deputy minister of rural development, the deputy minister of digital governance and the secretary general for rural development and food – resigned after their names appeared in a file from the European prosecutor implicating them in a massive scheme to defraud the EU’s lavish farm budget.
These are the most flagrant cases related to EU agricultural subsidies in recent years. However, in 2025, when Ukraine’s EU membership has come within reach, given the fast-track accession generously offered to the war-torn country by the European Commission, it is worth devoting a few minutes to consider whether Brussels would be able to cope with the complex issue of Ukrainian agriculture, including tackling the criminal groups that control the sector and handling the chaotic mix of Ukrainian land-owners and overseas stakeholders.
The question is particularly timely because this summer proved to be a really hot one for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy due to an unsuccessful attempt to eliminate the independence of Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies. After passing a law to abolish the independence of anti-corruption agencies and transfer them to the Prosecutor General’s Office controlled by the President’s Office, Zelenskyy was pushed by international criticism and protests in Ukraine to revise and then completely revoke the passed law, restoring the independence of the anti-corruption bodies.
Before the start of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022, Ukraine’s utilised agricultural area covered 41.3 million hectares, including 32.7 million hectares of arable land. This agricultural area made Ukraine the largest agricultural country on the European continent.
As part of the process of enlarging the European Union to include Ukraine, Farm Europe’s experts have analysed the situation concerning Ukraine’s agricultural sector in December 2024. ’Marked by its communist past, the Ukrainian agricultural sector is characterised by 110 huge vertically integrated agricultural companies, known as agro-holdings which control all or part the production chain. (…) Twenty of these companies are estimated to control 14% of Ukraine’s utilised agricultural area.’, Farm Europe notes in its study.
It is also important to stress that, estimates suggest that at least 1.6 million hectares of Ukrainian agricultural land are controlled by foreign-based corporations. (This control is largely achieved through long-term lease agreements.) Some estimates even go as high as 3.3 million hectares, or 10% of Ukraine’s arable land, according to Land Matrix.
According to a report by the European Parliament, as a result of the fact that Ukrainian agriculture has been a primary military target of Russia’s aggression, currently, Ukraine controls an estimated 26.5 million hectares of arable land, down from 32.7 million. Ukrainian agriculture has sustained an estimated US$80 billion in damages and losses due to the war.
The same document says that, rebuilding Ukrainian agriculture will cost US$56.1 billion in reconstruction and recovery needs. These numbers exclude the cost of demining and clearing unexploded devices, estimated to reach US$32 billion.
It is not only the size and productivity of the Ukrainian agriculture which has created concerns in existing EU Member States, but farmers also fear an unbalanced competition for markets. After the start of the war in Ukraine, EU imports of Ukrainian agricultural products increased, affecting prices in neighbouring Member States, and all this, as a clear expression of these fears, triggered protests of the farmers on the one hand, and import bans on behalf of some member states, on the other.
The cost of Ukraine joining the Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a major concern for EU farmers, who fear a significant redistribution of farm subsidies to support Ukraine’s agricultural sector. (According to some calculations, Ukraine’s CAP payments could amount to €10.4 billion per year if it were an EU Member State in 2022, which is more than France’s €9.3 billion.)
The adoption of EU standards as a membership requirement is one thing but it should also be taken into consideration that, with Ukraine joining the EU, land-owning oligarchs and non-EU actors can get access to EU funds.
And the question arises: are those EU officials who have failed to tackle Greek criminals and politicians, prepared for a confrontation with the Ukrainian mafia and influential American, Chinese, and other lobby groups which control Ukrainian agricultural lands? Because this confrontation will certainly take place once Ukraine becomes part of the EU and thus becomes a beneficiary of CAP subsidies.
Finally, it is worth keeping in mind that if the amount involved in the fraud in Greece was hundreds of millions of euros, then a similar case in Ukraine – already part of the bloc – would cost European taxpayers billions while causing the same damage to European farmers.
