Internal documents obtained by Solomon reveal the EU urged Greece to launch a vaccination campaign against sheeppox. Athens refused — and now the country faces one of its worst livestock crises in decades.
Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions and images of animal suffering.
The sheep barn still smelled faintly of milk. The feed troughs lay silent beneath a thick layer of dust, and a calendar on the wall hadn’t been flipped since July 18 — the day Giorgos Kouteris, 43, and his wife, Nancy Kaliva, 40, tended to their animals as usual for the last time.
Four days later, lab results confirmed what they feared: sheeppox, a fast-spreading viral disease that can tear through flocks of sheep and goats. By nightfall on August 2, the flock that had sustained their family for decades, roughly 700 animals, was gone.
“I was born among sheep,” Kouteris said quietly, sitting in the kitchen of his widowed mother’s home. “I carried on my father’s work.”
“This isn’t like any other job,” even when trade restrictions are factored in, added. “The animals are born, you raise them, you protect them, you get attached. They’re part of your daily life, from morning until night.”
When the culling team — the state workers charged with killing infected and exposed animals to stop the disease from spreading — arrived on their farm in the village of Armenio, Kouteris said they brought two veterinarians and 18 men.
The culling team began in the yard, sorting the animals into groups of about a hundred. The sheep were frantic, bleating, pressed against one another as the first shots echoed through the tin-roofed shed, the couple recalled.
Kouteris couldn’t watch. “I wasn’t myself,” he said. “I couldn’t make sense of what I was feeling.”
The sheep were stunned — rendered unconscious — in batches, before the team carried out the next step, known as “sticking,” to ensure they bled out completely.
Two loaders lifted the carcasses into trucks bound for the burial site. Kaliva said she remembered two still moving as they were put into the ground.
“The killing was…” Kouteris began.
“Brutal,” his wife finished.
The family’s loss was part of the worst sheeppox outbreak Greece has seen in years.
What appears to have started in Greece’s northeast region last year quickly spread inland. By early 2025, the disease had reached Thessaly, Greece’s livestock heartland, where regional authorities told Solomon more than 160,000 animals had been slaughtered by early November to contain the virus. The virus also swept through the Evros region, Central Macedonia, and Western Greece. The origin of the outbreak is under investigation, a European Commission spokesperson told Solomon.
Thessaly was the epicenter of the outbreak in September, when Solomon was reporting from the ground. For many in Thessaly, sheep and goats are not only tradition but an economic lifeline. The region produces over 15 percent of Greece’s milk, roughly 11 percent of its meat, and 47 percent of its soft cheese. Feta, which makes up 70 percent of the cheeses produced in Thessaly, is the second most important export in the region behind olive oil.
For months now, barns across the plains have stood silent. Entire villages lost their flocks in a region already reeling from Storm Daniel two years earlier.
“Ninety percent of the livestock in our area has been culled,” said Kouteris, referring to the municipalities of Kileler and Rigas Feraios, where sheep once filled the valley. “There are very few left.”
Since July 22, when his flock tested positive, he hasn’t earned a single euro. Feed he had purchased — more than €70,000 worth — now sits unsalvageable.
As part of a weeks-long investigation, Solomon traveled across Thessaly, visiting affected villages, documenting burial sites – one of which remained partially uncovered – and observing one culling operation undercover. Interviews with farmers, veterinarians, and legal experts pointed to the same conclusion: the devastation was not inevitable, but the result of a system built to react, not to prevent.
Internal EU documents — including minutes from a private meeting obtained by Solomon through freedom of information requests — show that months before the mass killings began, the European Commission had urged Greece to vaccinate its flocks, offering free doses, scientific backing, and co-funding through the EU’s vaccine bank.
Greece did not act.
With vaccination ruled out, authorities turned to mass culling — the slaughter of entire flocks in a bid to contain the disease. What followed was chaotic and scarring: families watched generations of work vanish in a day. In the process, experts told Solomon, Greece appears to have strayed from EU animal-welfare and disease-control standards.
In Brussels, officials had seen the crisis coming.
Between May 14 and 16, 2025, a team of EU veterinary experts, known as EU-VET, visited Greece after a surge of new infections that spring. They carried out fieldwork in Halkidiki, north of Thessaly, and met with national and regional authorities.
The mission’s findings were blunt: The renewed wave of cases was “probably related with animal movements during the Easter season,” it said, and “measures implemented so far seem not to be sufficient.” The team pointed to weak enforcement, poor biosecurity, and called for better coordination between national and regional authorities as well as with other stakeholders.
Among its main recommendations was to launch a vaccination campaign in high-risk areas to slow the spread.
EU officials told Athens that vaccines were available through the EU vaccine bank, free of charge, and that the Commission was prepared to co-finance the vaccine campaign and provide scientific support.
Vaccination, however, can come at a cost. Under EU law, vaccination against so-called Category A diseases like sheeppox is normally restricted in countries that are officially disease-free. In emergencies, member states can request special authorization from the Commission to carry out targeted vaccination campaigns in affected regions.
But vaccination also has significant trade consequences. It automatically triggers temporary restrictions on the movement of live animals and animal products, such as milk and meat, from the vaccination zone. And it suspends the region’s “disease-free” status, which is what allows livestock exports to continue.
In a statement to Solomon, the Commission said it was “ready to support” any member state that chooses vaccination, offering technical assistance, co-financing, and free doses from the EU’s sheep and goat pox vaccine bank, which currently holds 300,000 doses in physical stock and another 1.7 million on order.
Yet months later, it appears Greece still has not requested a single dose — effectively declining to activate the emergency mechanism that would have allowed vaccination, even as the Commission urged it to do so.
Greek officials initially noted that no vaccine was authorized for use in the EU, later invoking those restrictions to justify their decision not to vaccinate and expressing doubts about the vaccine’s scientific basis — a stance that appeared to harden as the outbreak worsened.
On September 12, nearly 400 farmers packed into a theater in Tyrnavos, a town in Thessaly. Some stood on chairs, others shouted from the aisles, demanding answers.
“The killings must stop!” one man yelled, his voice echoing across the room, where regional officials were also present.
For hours, farmers pleaded for clarity: Was a vaccine available or not?
The confusion was hardly unfounded. In July, an official from Greece’s agriculture ministry — the Ministry of Rural Development and Food — is said to have visited Larissa, the capital of Thessaly, and told farmers there was no vaccine, saying that available doses came from “third countries” not approved by the EU.
“They told us vaccines are forbidden,” Kouteris recalled, “and that the decision had been made to eradicate the disease by killing all the herds.”
Two weeks later, on September 23, a similar debate played out again – not in a crowded small-town theater this time, but behind closed doors in Brussels.
During a private meeting between European Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare Olivér Várhelyi and the Greek agriculture minister the two sides clashed over the EU’s call for vaccination.
Minutes from the meeting, obtained by Solomon through a freedom of information request, show Greece “strongly declined” the Commission’s recommendation to vaccinate.
Athens acknowledged failures in enforcement and noted “outbreaks due to farmers’ negligence of movement restrictions.” But it argued there was insufficient scientific justification to launch a vaccination campaign.
Commissioner Várhelyi’s team pushed back. They warned Greece that “not enforcing the restrictions and not applying vaccination will only result in more spread of the disease in Greece”. They emphasized that the vaccine’s scientific credibility “cannot be questioned”.
The Commission agreed to send documentation supporting the vaccine’s safety and efficacy. But when later asked by Solomon whether that evidence was ever shared, the Commission declined to provide details. In a statement to Solomon, it said EU authorities “have been in touch with the Greek authorities, and have shared information regarding this disease. However, this is confidential and we cannot disclose it.”
The Commission spokesperson added that while sheep and goat pox “has not been present in the EU for decades”, vaccination had been “successfully implemented in the past, including by Greece in the 1980s.” The EU vaccine bank, they said, “holds a significant number of available doses that are used in other parts of the world, where the disease is more present recently.”
Even among Greek officials, a gulf has emerged over vaccination. In October, the standoff spilled into public view. Dimitris Kouretas, Thessaly’s regional governor, went public with claims that the Commission had made vaccine doses available to Greece, but that no request had been filed.
Kouretas, a biochemistry professor, questioned why vaccination had not been pursued. He urged the national government to reverse course.
Greece’s agriculture minister dismissed the idea, reportedly saying in late October that he “did not understand how vaccination could be proposed when no approved vaccine exists,” and accused the regional governor of political grandstanding. “Not a single country that chose vaccination has eradicated smallpox,” he said in early November.
Deputy minister Christos Kellas doubled down. “Greece will not become a guinea pig”, he said, insisting the country had followed the EU’s eradication rules to the letter.
Several farmers told Solomon they would have chosen vaccination if given the chance.
Greece’s agriculture minister, Kostas Tsiaras, has defended the government’s refusal to vaccinate, arguing that countries like Turkey and India that do so “are in an endemic status and therefore cannot export their products.” But the cost of the alternative may be higher.
Since the outbreak began, more than 350,000 animals have been culled across Greece, according to official figures cited by Dimitris Kouretas, Thessaly’s regional governor. In a Facebook post, he wrote that this amounts to roughly 115,000 tons of milk and 27,000 tons of feta cheese — nearly a fifth of Greece’s annual feta production. If the disease continues unchecked, he warned, another 50,000 tons of feta could be lost, equivalent to the country’s annual exports.
Multiple recent studies suggest that preventative measures like targeted vaccination in high-risk zones is often more economically viable than mass culling, even when trade restrictions are factored in.
A 2018 modeling study by researchers at the University of Göttingen in Germany compared culling with emergency vaccination of classical swine fever, another Category A disease. It found that while vaccination carried lower direct costs, current EU trade rules and political factors made it economically unattractive — and urged changes to EU law to promote vaccination over mass culling.
Subsequent studies have reinforced that conclusion. A 2025 global review of sheep and goat pox found that the real economic cost of such outbreaks lies not only in trade disruptions but in the collapse of local production and the expense of rebuilding herds. In other words, while vaccination may carry short-term trade penalties, the economic damage of culling – measured in milk, meat and livelihoods – can be far greater.
“Mass culling is traumatic for farmers, problematic for affected local communities, and costly for European taxpayers as farmers are compensated for the lost animals,” said Elena Nalon, senior veterinary adviser at Eurogroup for Animals, a Brussels-based coalition representing more than 70 animal-welfare organizations.
Across Thessaly, the outbreak’s toll extended beyond the animals. Farmers described confusing directives, slow responses, and government actions that sometimes made things worse.
Apostolis Kakaloulis, 45, was the last sheep farmer left in Kileler, a village of 350 residents and more than 1,200 sheep before the outbreak. His family had been in livestock farming for over half a century. When his animals showed signs of infection in early September, he immediately alerted the veterinary service. Tests confirmed sheeppox. But the culling didn’t take place for another 11 days.
“I go to the stable with a heavy heart,” he said in mid-September, days before the state arrived to kill his flock. Some animals had stopped eating. Others had gone blind. He was giving them water by hand, twice a day. “It’s the first time in my life that I don’t want to go,” he said. “But I can’t leave them like that. I grew up with these animals.”
Outside the barn, the carcasses lay under a tarp — as he says authorities instructed him — to remain eligible for compensation.
A father of two, he took a job at a grill shop in Larissa to support his family. “It’s not easy, at 45, to change jobs and have a boss,” he said.
Kakaloulis said his flock was infected only after the one next door, about 150 meters away, which belonged to his neighbor. Authorities took weeks to reach the first farm, he said, and by the time they got him, the virus – which transmits through contact between animals, shared feed or water, and through contaminated materials and clothing – had already spread.
When the culling operations began, they followed a grimly familiar pattern. Once a positive case was confirmed, teams often arrived days – sometimes more than a week – after the diagnosis. By then, sick, healthy, and dead animals were sometimes kept together.
Farmers said they received little information about what would happen next. When the trucks finally came, what followed felt improvised — part official procedure, part chaos.
During one operation observed by Solomon undercover, the animals were herded into an open yard. Many were visibly ill — coughing, breathing heavily, their bodies marked with sores. Some could no longer stand. A few meters away, the carcasses of animals that had died in previous days were already decomposing. The stench hung thick in the air, turning unbearable whenever the wind shifted.
Wearing two masks, Solomon’s reporter watched as an infected sheep settled in the shade of a tree, between two piles of corpses. “Their bodies are burning hot to the touch,” a farmer on site said.
Witnesses described the work being done in batches: animals stunned first, then bled several minutes later, in groups.
For the farmers, the scenes were devastating. Several broke down in tears recounting them. “I didn’t see anything. I heard the ‘bam bam bam’ and left,” said Manolis Papaoikonomou, a farmer whose animals had been culled.
Carcasses were then taken to pits dug out in nearby fields or, in some cases, on the farmers’ own land.
Under EU Regulation 1069/2009, on-site burial is allowed only in exceptional circumstances, for instance when carcasses cannot be safely transported. Such operations must be carried out under veterinary supervision to prevent contamination.
Kouteris and Kaliva said their own burial appeared to have been done properly, on their property. “Others had problems with smell and fluids,” Kaliva said. “Our job was done right, as far as we can tell,” Kouteris added.
But they said some nearby sites raised concerns. “In the next village of Kalamaki, for example, even a month later, you could still smell it just driving by. The stench and fluids were obvious,” Kouteris said.
In Kileler, Solomon visited a site dug out to bury carcasses from recent cullings. The trench was still uncovered. The soil oozed with a dark liquid, emitting a putrid smell. A farmer familiar with the area said the pit was located near cultivated fields and not far from a local water source, raising concerns about possible contamination. Solomon was not able to independently verify those claims.
Dr. Steven Van Winden, an associate professor in population medicine at the Royal Veterinary College in London, said the conditions Solomon documented in Thessaly were “not acceptable from a disease-control perspective,” with poor containment risking further spread.
“There is the risk of leakage of bodily fluids into streams, and the virus can resurge again if there are livestock in the area, especially for sheep and goats,” he said.
He added that poorly contained burial sites and unvaccinated new flocks create the conditions for future outbreaks.
“If people in charge are not taking this seriously, the consequence is that there will be less chance of a viable sheep flock in that area,” he said. “And that’s a sad situation because especially when families are dependent on that as an economic activity. That will have a massive impact.”
Kaliva and Kouteris said officials promised to disinfect their farm, a basic biosecurity step. But when Kouteris asked about it shortly after the culling, he said they replied that “they didn’t have time,” because of ongoing killing operations. “They said they’d come later.”
Three months later, no one had come.
Solomon reached out to regional authorities and to the Ministry of Rural Development and Food with detailed questions about the handling of the outbreak. Neither replied by deadline.
What unfolded in Thessaly, experts say, is not an isolated failure; it reflects a deeper flaw in Europe’s animal-health system: one designed more to contain disease than to prevent it.
Under EU Regulation 687/2020, vaccination against Category A diseases like sheeppox is allowed only under exceptional conditions and requires authorization from the Commission. Countries often avoid it altogether for fear of losing their trade-friendly “disease-free” status.
That fear, critics say, creates an incentive to cull rather than prevent.
“Disease outbreaks requiring the mass killing of farmed animals are no longer the exception in the EU”, Nalon of Eurogroup for Animals told Solomon in a statement.
“Hundreds of millions of animals are killed every year… This is no longer an emergency. Member states must invest more in disease surveillance, prevention and preparedness so that these operations are carried out only as a last resort”.
The group recommended prevention through vaccination, better surveillance and lower farming density — rather than defaulting to mass culling.
Even the act of killing, supposedly governed by strict EU rules, is riddled with loopholes. EU Regulation 1099/2009 requires animals to be “spared any avoidable pain, distress or suffering during their killing and related operations.”
In practice, however, that protection is easily weakened. Article 18(3) allows national authorities to grant exceptions whenever they believe full compliance could slow down disease eradication.
Experts in animal welfare law told Solomon this clause gives governments wide discretion to bypass welfare safeguards with little oversight – for example permitting methods like electric shock or CO2 suffocation.
The European Institute for Animal Law & Policy, a Brussels-based think tank, said the broader regulatory framework remains “incredibly permissive”. It described what Solomon documented in Thessaly this year as non-compliant in spirit but likely legal in form.
Internal presentations reviewed by Solomon show that, throughout 2025, Greek representatives repeatedly assured the Commission’s Animal Health and Welfare Committee that all animal-welfare and disease-control measures were being applied in line with EU law.
Member states are required to submit annual reports detailing each culling operation — how many animals were killed, what methods were used, and any exceptions granted. But reporting is patchy, and enforcement from Brussels is limited.
Solomon understands that as of late October, Greece had not submitted its 2024 report.
Now, the system could get weaker. The EU is considering reforms that would eliminate reporting requirements altogether — a move critics warn would further reduce accountability.
In Thessaly, the barns are quiet. Farmers wait —for permission to restock, for compensation, for answers.
Three months after their flock was culled, Kouteris and Kaliva said they had received just one payment: a partial reimbursement for feed they bought when their flock was confined under movement restrictions.
“We’re living on loans,” Kaliva said, trying to support their family of six, including four children.
At the stable, the calendar still shows July, the month their flock tested positive, the month their lives changed.
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