[ Last week, two trains collided in central Greece, claiming 57
lives. Unions had long warned that cuts to the now-privatized rail
network would cause a severe accident, but neither the government nor
the country’s corporate media heeded the calls.]
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GREECE’S TRAGIC RAIL ACCIDENT WAS CAUSED BY AUSTERITY AND
PRIVATIZATION  
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Matthaios Tsimitakis and Mihalis Panayiotakis
March 8, 2023
Jacobin
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_ Last week, two trains collided in central Greece, claiming 57
lives. Unions had long warned that cuts to the now-privatized rail
network would cause a severe accident, but neither the government nor
the country’s corporate media heeded the calls. _

Scene where two trains collided in northern Greece., Reuters

 

The devastating railway accident near the Vale of Tempe in central
Greece, which lies between Athens and Thessaloniki, has had a profound
impact on the nation. The majority of the fifty-seven fatalities (the
exact number is still unclear) were young students, either on their
way back to the University of Thessaloniki or returning home from a
trip to Athens after a three-day break.

The collision was one of Europe’s deadliest rail accidents
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a decade. The passenger train was traveling at 160 km/h when it
collided head-on with a cargo train moving at 110 km/h. The force of
the impact generated temperatures high enough to melt steel. It is
unlikely that some victims’ remains will ever be retrieved; others
will only be identified through DNA testing.

Now millions in Greece are asking: How was it possible that two trains
could travel for all of twelve kilometers on the same railway line, in
opposite directions, without anyone noticing? Why weren’t telematics
or other safety measures in place?

Worker Unions Rang the Alarm

There were plenty of indications that a severe accident was around the
corner. Greece’s railway unions predicted the accident in advance,
weeks before it happened. A series of union notices publicly warned of
danger. In an official notice sent on February 7 to the Hellenic
Railways Organisation (OSE), unions described the state of disrepair
on the railway system and warned management of forthcoming industrial
action: “We are not going to wait for the coming accident to see
them shedding crocodile tears and making declarations.”

In April 2022, the head of ETCS (the European Train Control
System) resigned over concerns
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the security of the carriers and the public. Nonetheless, the
mainstream media, complicit in the tragedy, ignored all the alarm
bells.

According to the railway company’s own organizational chart, there
should be at least two thousand workers employed to maintain
standards. At the time of the accident, however, there were less than
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hundred fifty.

Three similar accidents on the same route had already occurred in
2022, though without any fatalities, and there have been thirty-seven
safety incidents
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total during the past ten years. Last week, the European
Commission referred
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to the European Court of Justice for failure to comply with the rules
of railway transport.

The Root Causes

Since the Greek bailout, a consistent feature of conservatives has
been the demonization of the unions. Once it came into government, New
Democracy passed an anti-labor law that made most strikes illegal
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workers’ efforts to sound the alarm about railway safety.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government boasts that it is
modernizing the state through the (belated) introduction of digital
systems and the opening of markets through deregulation. One of the
main pillars of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, funded by
the EU with billions of euros, is the digitization of public services.

But thanks to an ongoing cut to the workforce, Greek train engine
drivers remain overworked and dealing with old equipment, poor safety
measures, and only makeshift interpersonal communication
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These outdated and unsafe conditions are the product of neoliberalism.
They are the result of a program that invests in the bankruptcy of
public assets, only to reintroduce them as private monopolies
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while it guarantees political support through clientelism and neglect
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Except for the single line that connects the two major cities in the
north and the south, railways have never been a significant part of
Greece’s transport system. Railway privatization, a bailout
obligation
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by the infamous troika of lenders more than ten years ago, led to a
split between railway infrastructure companies and rail service
providers. Contrary to the expansion of the railway network across
Europe and the introduction there of upgraded safety measures
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the Greek railway network
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shrunk.

The government retained the infrastructure management through the
state-owned company, OSE, ensuring that the public monopoly of
passenger trains became a private one, sold to the Italian state-owned
company Ferrovie dello Stato
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The negligent management
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OSE made a bad situation worse by avoiding its responsibility to
maintain public infrastructure.

In a frenzy to privatize public assets and outsource services
through public-private partnerships
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contractors, the conservative government refused to hire enough
railway workers to balance the number of workers retiring in the OSE
workforce. This resulted in a railway system bereft of basic safety
mechanisms
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According to the stationmaster of Larissa, a telecommanding center
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guaranteed the safety of trains, operated until 2019 when the left
government of Syriza lost the elections.

On top of all this, there is also political corruption. The
stationmaster, blamed for the tragedy, was hired as a temp, allegedly
with the intervention of a high-ranking New Democracy cadre. He was
trained quickly and allowed to manage the tracks without any backup
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monitoring.

By 2010, the debt of OSE reached €10 billion or 4 percent of the
Greek GDP. By 2013, nineteen contracts for the installation of
signaling systems had been awarded for a total value of €460
million
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the European Commission. However, none of these work in critical parts
of the network like the Vale of Tempe. Between 2018–20, Greece had
more deadly railway accidents per kilometer traveled than any other EU
country.

Shock Doctrine Once Again

Since the Tempe accident, there have been large-scale protests in
Greece, and the usual presence of riot police
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tear gas, and police brutality. Nonetheless, the protests continue to
grow, signaling a new era of social tension and upheaval.

Twelve years after the bailout of the Greek economy by the troika of
lenders, a great part of Greece’s public infrastructure has been
sold off, both to European public or private companies and, further
afield, to Chinese state companies. The rule of law and the overall
function of institutions is so degraded that it is now questionable if
it meets European standards.

The judiciary, increasingly delegitimized in public perception, is
under EU scrutiny as to its independence
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while mainstream Greek media is under the control of
government-friendly oligarchs, or otherwise bribed
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submission. Greece, according to RSF rankings for press freedom, is in
the 108th position
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it is the least free of all EU countries. Crises are stacking up in
Greece but lacking a rigorous media, the casualties produced are being
publicly reported as a kind of natural phenomenon. There was nothing
natural about the thirty-five thousand victims of COVID-19 who died
because of the disrepair and understaffing of the health care system.

Greece is still undergoing neoliberal shock therapy. In the midst of
the COVID-19 emergency and after the end of the bailout agreements in
2018, it has continued unabated. Tellingly, in the aftermath of the
train disaster, the government moved to introduce two bills: one for
the privatization of the only children’s cancer hospital in the
country and the second to introduce a first step for the privatization
of the water service.

With legislative elections due in July this year, the Greek electorate
is being asked to vote for another four years of neoliberal shock and
awe. Opinion polls predict another New Democracy victory, but in the
light of the latest tragedy, such an outcome now looks less likely.

_Matthaios Tsimitakis is a journalist and a communication expert based
in Athens, Greece. He was the social media manager for Alexis Tsipras
from 2016–19. As a journalist, he has been a staff reporter
for Avgi newspaper, and before that Kathimerini._

_Mihalis Panayiotakis is a web analyst and journalist, a member of the
investigative team the Manifold Files
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for a number of Greek media outlets._

 

* Greece
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* train wreck
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* privatization
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* Austerity
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