State Minister Panagiotis Nikoloudis said he gave justice a list of 1,300 illegal loans given out by former state-owned Agricultural Bank of Greece (ATE).
Nikoloudis, who is in charge of fighting corruption, said that the loans given and never repaid are the biggest financial and political scandal in Greek history. The minister said he gave the full list of persons and organizations that received the loans to judicial authorities and the Greek Parliament.
The minister said that “the task of recovering the funds belongs to the liquidator of ATE (civil procedure) and to the judicial authorities to which the case has been referred to (criminal proceedings).”
The total amount of unpaid loans is almost 5 billion euros. The debts have been transferred to the Tax Office, Nikoloudis said, and once the case has been transferred to judicial authorities, the state minister can no longer intervene.
“It is imperative to do everything possible to recover those funds, despite difficulties in the investigation of the case, which is the biggest financial-political scandal in modern Greek history,” Nikoloudis said. All pertinent ministries will be involved in order for the money to be recovered, he added.
The amount the Greek state can receive from the illegal loans has not been established yet since procedures are ongoing, Nikoloudis said.
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