{"id":24016,"date":"2025-12-18T12:57:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T12:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.selinawamucii.com\/news\/?p=24016"},"modified":"2025-12-18T12:57:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T12:57:06","slug":"agricultural-grexit-farmers-in-greece-continue-port-blockade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.selinawamucii.com\/news\/2025\/12\/18\/agricultural-grexit-farmers-in-greece-continue-port-blockade\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Agricultural Grexit\u2019: farmers in Greece continue port blockade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A subsidy payment fall out <\/u><\/a>in Greece barring thousands of farmers from receiving European Union (EU) benefits has tossed 3-week protests into major ports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The affected 40,000 livestock keepers and crop growers are taking part in the angry blockading protest, with a minister warning of \u2018Grexit.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By December 17, 2025, highway blockades to the customs points at Evzonoi and Niki near the North Macedonia border were still intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar escalation was also happening on the Bulgaria border in the ports of Promachonas and Exochi, according to the Greek Reporter<\/u><\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protesters blocking the Promachonas highway are sparing all freight carriers other than those ferrying international goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Nevrokopi near Promachonas and Eznoi, farmers were early on the 17th<\/sup> vowing to block traffic at specific roads in the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Appeasing the Cause   <\/strong>  <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On December 16, PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis offered an extra \u20ac160 million  ($187.2 million) to farmers after an intense deliberation at parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PM promised to set up a committee to settle farmers’ issues within the next four months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier on, the Minister of Rural Development & Food Kostas Tsiaras had ambitiously proposed to directly subsidize farming diesel as in other EU nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tsiaras had also offered to bring natural disaster relief for farmers in the topographically rugged country to a maximum 100%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, the community of herders and crop producers could see the prices of their electricity utility go down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While these proposals are saving face, they are yet to tackle the heart of the matter: the scandal that froze EU payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over 100 livestock farmers fraudulently received the bloc\u2019s subsidies in the 2017-20 period via the national payment system, OPEKEPE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2019-2025 period, the amount the OPEKEPE had misappropriated had reached \u20ac1.7 million ($1.996 million), according to Protothema.<\/u><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matters came to a head in February 2025 when the European Commission slapped 100 suspects with damages totaling\u00a0\u20ac2.9 million ($3.5 million).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Minister of State Akis Skertsos has therefore warned of  an\u201cagricultural Grexit<\/u><\/a>\u201d if a new subsidy system also fails in implementation. This ministerial remark highlights the importance of farmers in Greece, which is the topic of the below data section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greece Farmers <\/strong>Statistics <\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Farmers in Greece make up a large part of the job base and inject much to the economy, especially in olive and livestock sectors. According to the European Commission, 10%<\/u><\/a> of all jobs in Greece are farm-based.  This is to say around 400,000 people in Greece have farm employment. Farmers and their workforce operate 700,000 farms <\/u><\/a>countrywide, averaging 7 hectares apiece.  Most of the labour force constitutes the 31% of the national population that lives in the rural areas, which is above the European Union (EU) average. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do Greece\u2019s farmers receive farm subsidies?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over 70%<\/u><\/a> of national arable land in Greece is challenging due to topography (slopes e.t.c.) or faces natural disasters, which necessitates subsidies. The government in December 2025, for example, announced \u20ac160 million<\/u><\/a> ($187.2 million) as farmer support. Another major subsidy provider is the EU, which however denied 40,000 farmers<\/u><\/a> subsidies in 2025 after a payment fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How big is the livestock farming base of Greece?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slopes, Cretan pastures and fodder crops help make Greece a major livestock-keeping nation. It is principally the leader in sheep-rearing terms in the Mediterranean. Fodder crops constitute a big portion of the sector\u2019s base. Rye, for example, enjoys an export value of \u20ac51,000 <\/u><\/a>($59,843 )in 2019. Livestock totals are another way to evaluate the large size of the sector, per the FAOSTAT<\/u><\/a>-interpreted data below: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year<\/strong><\/td>Cattle [Head]<\/strong><\/td>Sheep [Head]<\/strong><\/td>Goats[Head]<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
2023<\/strong><\/td>622,400<\/td>7,892,300<\/td>2,747,700<\/td><\/tr>
2022<\/strong><\/td>581,600<\/td>7,378,400<\/td>2,960,900<\/td><\/tr>
2021<\/strong><\/td>614,100<\/td>7,690,900<\/td>3,135,100<\/td><\/tr>
2020<\/strong><\/td>631,500<\/td>7,721,800<\/td>3,149,000<\/td><\/tr>
2019<\/strong><\/td>530,000<\/td>8,427,000<\/td>3,580,000<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>
Fig: number of cattle, sheep and goats in Greece, 2019-23<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A subsidy payment fall out in Greece barring thousands of farmers from receiving European Union (EU) benefits has tossed 3-week protests into major ports.  The affected 40,000 livestock keepers and crop growers are taking part in the angry blockading protest, with a minister warning of \u2018Grexit.\u2019 By December 17, 2025, highway blockades to the customs points at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Agricultural Grexit\u2019: farmers in Greece continue port blockade - Selina Wamucii | Food & Agriculture News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.selinawamucii.com\/news\/2025\/12\/18\/agricultural-grexit-farmers-in-greece-continue-port-blockade\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Agricultural Grexit\u2019: farmers in Greece continue port blockade - 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