"OPEKEPE has never had its own IT system. It is a multi-functional process," Minister of Rural Development and Food Kostas Tsiaras said last Tuesday, in reference to the disgraced Greek Payment Authority of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), after a meeting with employees of the now defunct agency. The latter's workforce will now be transferred and absorbed into the independent tax bureau, known as AADE or IAPR. The question then arises: how "multi-functional" was this process? The backdrop, of course, is a high-profile investigation by the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) into widespread fraud involving Community subsidies doled out by OPEKEPE's services to bogus "young farmers" and stockbreeders, at least identified as such on paper, for fictitious herds and pasturelands. One answer to the question lies some five years ago when the then head of OPEKEPE, Grigoris Varras, announced in a video message, the agency's transition...