- Four agrarian enterprises owned by the Tkáčov family from the J&T group must return to the state last year’s aid paid beyond the scope of subsidies from the EU budget.
- The companies kept quiet that executions were being conducted against them. They disqualify applicants from support.
- The farms defend that they don’t really owe anyone anything, and that the foreclosures are just the result of preliminary injunctions from their lawsuits over acreage.
- East Slovak farmer František Oravec, who was at the head of the anti-government farm protests, is behind the executions, but later he was also accused of fraud.
The four eastern Slovak farms of the Tkáčov family, which is one of the most influential in the country thanks to its investment group J&T, must return to the state all agricultural aid received last year. This is money for damage caused by drought, for green diesel fuel used in animal husbandry and growing fruit and vegetables, and also for insurance premium payments in agricultural production. They concern agribusinesses Mold-Trade, Mold-Trade Group, Agro-Valaliky aj Agro Valaliky Group after the headquarters in Cestice, which lie on the opposite side of the Košice steelworks area, as the new car factory of the Swedish Volvo is being created.
The companies, which according to the register of public sector partners are controlled by the sister of J&T leader Patrik Tkáč Andrea, are losing state aid after the Agricultural Payments Agency additionally discovered that they hid executions when submitting an affidavit.
“All four companies are registered in the execution register and the decision is being enforced against them. According to the Act on Budgetary Rules of Public Administration, executions may not be carried out against applicants for state aid,” Jozef Kiss, the agency’s general director, told Denník E, adding that this is why companies were asked to return all state aid from the national budget at the end of February.
Kiss added that for the quartet of companies, they are also checking previously provided state aid from 2019 to 2021, and