Organized crime: how the mafia is undermining agriculture

The EU Parliament complains that support cash is disappearing. The variety of unreported circumstances is excessive. There can be progress in the struggle towards the mafia, however there are risks attributable to the excessive transfers.

MIn northern Europe, afiosi are sometimes launched as gents in effective fits and stylish footwear. They prefer to disguise themselves – as farmers, for instance. There is no different merchandise of expenditure the place the European Union distributes as a lot cash because it does by way of the system of the widespread agricultural coverage. The European restoration fund is now being added. So it is not shocking that Italy has repeatedly been focused by the inspectors. At €190 billion, the nation is the largest recipient of the European reconstruction support determined throughout the pandemic, and Italy has at all times been a big recipient of agricultural support. Varied mafia organizations sense a chance right here to faucet public funds.

“It is an ongoing drawback. The criminals make investments time and money as a result of they’re attracted by the many billions of euros in the EU,” mentioned Monika Hohlmeier at a press convention in Rome on Friday. The MEP, as chair of the Budgetary Management Committee in the EU Parliament, has paid a go to to the Italian authorities with a handful of different committee members to verify on issues. She then reported on circumstances through which as much as 200 million euros had been evaded, various them in Sicily or Calabria. Most of the time, public authorities and their surroundings had been bribed, she reported – or the competitors was brutally restricted: “In a single case it was about the public sale of a lease – in the finish there was just one bidder, as a result of everybody else knew that it was a member of the organized crime,” she mentioned. One other case concerned illegally imported pesticides and synthetic fertilizers from China, that are banned in the EU. “From the exterior it regarded like regular synthetic fertilizer or regular pesticides, however they had been clear fakes”.