EA general strike in protest against lax security measures severely curtailed public life in Greece on Wednesday. The Greek union of civil servants had called for the strike, and other organizations had joined.
In the capital Athens, subways only ran between noon and afternoon, buses not at all. Ships didn’t sail either. Hospital staff and a teachers’ union also joined the walkout.
Protest rally in Athens
A protest rally was also called in Athens to demand safe public transport for passengers and employees. The protests and strikes were another public response to the February 28 rail disaster in which 56 people lost their lives when a full-speed freight train collided with a passenger train.
Flowers lie outside Larissa train station in Athens to commemorate the 57 people who died in the train crash.
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Image: dpa
In Thessaloniki, where the passenger train should have arrived, students protested under the slogan: “It’s not an accident, it’s not a calamity, it’s a crime”. In Patras, Greece’s third largest city, protesters threw paint bags and stones at the facade of the city’s transport administration building.
Meanwhile, the investigations of the Greek public prosecutor’s office widened. The station master at the Larissa railway station in Thessaly, who was on duty at the time of the accident and is said to be responsible for ensuring that the trains race towards each other on the same track, is no longer the only suspect.
Safety technology only partially installed
According to Greek media reports, investigations are also directed against the superior inspector who is said to have used the inexperienced station manager. Another railway employee should have been at his post by eleven o’clock in the evening on the night of the accident, but had left before then.
The public prosecutor’s office is apparently directing its investigations to the question of how it could be that safety technology was not or only partially installed on Greece’s busiest railway line from Athens to Thessaloniki.
According to unofficial information, this could also concern the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in Brussels. The question is whether financial support from the EU has been embezzled. Experts sent by the EU, including the head of the European Railway Agency ERA, Josef Doppelbauer, are now to support Greece in improving the safety and signaling technology of the Greek track network.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has been in power since 2019, initially tried to divert criticism of his government by pointing to decades of failures in the Greek railway system. However, this tactic only seemed to work to a limited extent, which is why Mitsotakis adjusted his approach.
On Wednesday he, his finance minister and his government spokesman attended the funeral of the train driver of one of the two trains that crashed in Athens. Mitsotakis also asked the public prosecutor’s office in a written statement to investigate as quickly and comprehensively as possible and promised comprehensive cooperation. Elections will be held in Greece this year, probably in May.