The apologies of the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, did not change anything. Anger overwhelms the Greeks after the train disaster that killed 57 people on February 28. That night, a passenger train from Athens to Thessaloniki with more than 350 passengers – including many students – collided with a freight convoy near the town of Larissa in the Tempe Valley. On March 8, more than 50,000 Greeks marched throughout the country, to the rhythm of the slogans “Mitsotakis resignation”, “we will not forget the crime of Tempé”.
A whole guilty system
“The country is experiencing a national trauma, it is the deadliest rail accident in its history, underlines Yiorgos Vassalos, a political science teacher. Almost everyone has already taken this railway line at least once in his life. Nobody knew that there were so many problems concerning basic security breaches…” For now, the station master of Larissa has been charged and three other railway employees are prosecuted for, among other things , negligent manslaughter. But for angry citizens, a whole system is at the origin of this tragedy, and not a single “human error”, as the Prime Minister had formulated it just after the accident.
In the viewfinder: the current government, but also the public company OSE, manager of the rail network, and Hellenic Train, the railway company in the hands of an Italian group, responsible for the operation of passenger and freight trains. The transport minister, who resigned, admitted that the state of the Greek network “is not suitable for the 21st century”. Serious anomalies had been denounced by the railway unions in recent years, such as signaling, still done manually. Alerts without effect.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into a contract signed in 2014 by a subsidiary of the public railway company, concerning the upgrade of the train signaling system and remote control. It provided for the modernization of this line linking Athens, Thessaloniki and Promachonas, which should have recently been operated by the joint venture formed by TOMI and Alstom. After the disaster, the long delay in its implementation concentrates all the questions.
For the Greeks, “the feeling of being despised”
The demonstrators also attribute the rail disaster to the austerity policies imposed during the debt crisis, from 2008, under pressure from the Troika (European Commission, ECB, IMF) of creditors. This tragedy highlights the decline in the workforce in public services, a key measure of these austerity policies. The accused Larissa station master was thus alone at the controls on the evening of the accident and inexperienced for this position which he had held for several months. “This gives the Greeks the feeling of being despised, that as citizens they are not a priority, explains expert Yiorgos Vassalos. Their public services, which do not pay [de bénéfices], are failing: transport but also education, hospitals. Greece has, in this regard, the highest number of Covid deaths per population in the EU…. At the same time as this abandonment, the government is pursuing an economic project almost exclusively based on the arrival of tourists.
The privatization of the railway company Hellenic Train (formerly TrainOSE), carried out as part of this austerity cure desired by the Troika, is also singled out. In the midst of the debt crisis, Greece had given in to the privatization of many of its public or parastatal companies: ports, airports… This privatization of Hellenic Train had been finalized under the mandate of the radical left party Syriza (2015 to 2019), yet opposed to this policy. “It was a commitment made before our arrival, under the right-wing government, and we had not succeeded in preventing it, just like the privatization of airports, details Giorgos Katrougalos, a deputy from Syriza. with the Troika in 2015, we managed to negotiate that water not be privatized. Under pressure, we failed to do more.”
“The Greek authorities should have insisted on the obligations of these new buyers, who are supposed to think first and foremost about the safety of citizens, points out economist Nicholas Theocharakis. The investigation is underway and we will know more, but the fact that he no single co-ordinating authority (but mixed operation between OSE and Hellenic Train) and state neglect of the rail network have contributed to the development of a system vulnerable to accidents.”
The rail tragedy could have serious political consequences for the New Democracy government, previously leading in the polls but weakened as elections are due to be held in the spring. Prior to the accident, local media were reporting rumors of an early ballot on April 9. Now, several political observers are counting on a postponement of the elections in May, in a more than uncertain political context.