2024-03-26 21:02:28
With the signatures of the MPs of PASOK-KINAL, SYRIZA, New Left and Plefsis Eleftherias, the joint motion of no confidence against the government was officially submitted to the presidium of the Parliament.
As informed by competent sources from SYRIZA, there was “very good communication” earlier between Nikos Androulakis and the president of K.O. of the party, Sokratis Famello, so that the text can be shaped based on the observations of the official opposition.
According to the information, the main body of the proposal is the tragedy of Tempe and the cover-up operation on the part of the government, while elements were added regarding (and) the recent revelations about leaks of personal information of voters by the Ministry of the Interior.
Reference was also added to the major issues of everyday life, such as punctuality.
The text of the motion of censure
“On February 28, 2023, the greatest railway tragedy in the history of our country took place, when the Intercity passenger train running the Athens-Thessaloniki route collided head-on with a commercial train outside S.S. Tempo Evangelism due to the simultaneous movement of both on the descent line, as a result of which 57 of our fellow citizens lost their lives unjustly.
The crime of Tempe highlighted impermissible gaps in the security of the Greek railways, as well as deficiencies in basic safety systems, which were either out of order or had not even been installed at the time of the fatal tragedy, as repeatedly and explicitly warned by the administrations, centrally executives and the employee representatives of the organizations involved. Despite this, the New Democracy government and the competent minister, Mr. Karamanlis, not only did not take the required relevant actions, but had the audacity to assure before the Greek Parliament that there is no safety issue in the operation of the railways.
To the criminal oligarchy and indifference of the government was added the similarly criminal and methodical attempt to cover up the case and to create a veil of protection for specific persons.
Initially, with an order issued on March 4, 2023, just a few days after the tragic collision, the site of the tragedy was illegally altered, with the carriage of the two trains, the “bazoma” and the clearing of the area, resulting in the destruction valuable evidence for investigations, as certified by special experts investigating the causes of the unprecedented tragedy.
The specific questions and issues were never investigated by the commission of inquiry, which was instrumentalized by the ruling majority to serve the cover-up plan. Government majority that refused the proposal for the establishment of a special parliamentary committee to carry out a preliminary examination of article 86 par.3 of the Constitution, in order to investigate – following the conclusion of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office – any criminal responsibilities of politicians who were involved in the improper and timely implementation of contract 717/2014.
The concerted effort to cover up the case on the part of the governing majority continued even during the work of the Commission of Inquiry “to investigate the crime of Tempe and all aspects related to it” investigating the operating conditions of the Greek railway since 1997, that is, twenty-six years before the crime of Tempe.
In particular, we mention the methodical exclusion by the MPs of the governing majority of witnesses of key importance for the clarification of the case, as they were persons who had direct knowledge of the current state of the network, the management of contract 717/2014 and the political decisions concerning his tenure Mr. K. Karamanlis at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. Members of the ruling majority on the commission of inquiry ignored repeated requests from opposition parties, while delaying the summoning of witnesses who had no knowledge of the current state of the rail network, as well as the delayed summoning of crucial witnesses after they had been put on the stand with result in claiming the right to remain silent. Furthermore, the governing majority proceeded with the arbitrary decision for the early completion of the work of the Commission of Inquiry.
The last act of this – in name only – Commission of Inquiry was written during the final debate of the Commission’s findings in the Plenary of Parliament, with the 723-page finding submitted by the ruling majority making a blatant and clumsy attempt to assign full responsibility for the tragedy of human error, completely ignoring the conclusion of the three-member committee of experts that the Government itself recommended and which resulted in the absence of a local remote control system in Larissa, the non-functioning of the central secondary control system in Karolos, the non-activation of the GSM system -R and the incomplete and insufficient training of the station master who had been illegally transferred. As well as the non-completion of the disputed contract 717/2014 related to the signaling system – remote control and the automatic braking system (ETCS) which if they were operational on 28/2/2023, the tragedy would have been avoided for sure as the trains would have stopped automatically.
The European Public Prosecutor also referred to the causal relationship between the non-completion of contract 717/2014 and the tragedy in Tempi, which is also being investigated by the competent investigative authority.
We note that in the debate on the findings of the Commission of Inquiry in the Parliament, the Prime Minister chose not to attend, disdaining the role and the very functioning of the Parliament.
In the methodical attempt to cover up the truth about the Tempe tragedy, new data is now being added that proves the alteration of the fatal station master’s conversations with train drivers in Larissa on the night of the tragedy, in order to magnify human error as the sole cause, according to the Government’s story of the conflict and thus downgrade existing government responsibilities regarding the state of the rail network. According to documents of the Forensic Laboratories of EL.AS. it turns out that just hours after the collision, someone illegally removed the stationmaster’s conversations from the OSE and, after “cutting” them, released them altered to the public on March 1, 2023 to make it appear that the stationmaster had indicated the wrong course to the fatal train for to reinforce the – pre-decided and already formulated in the morning of the same day by Mr. Mitsotakis himself – the official government narrative that wanted the tragedy to be solely due to human error, with the obvious purpose of misinforming and manipulating public opinion.
It is noted that as confirmed by EL.AS. the recorded audio material was delivered to Police headquarters by an OSE employee on March 3, 2023.
These new shocking revelations come to be added to the tripartite “cover-up-corruption-impunity”, in which the “excellent” Government of the New Democracy is consistently distinguished and which has caused a wave of justified anger in society.
In fact, in the criticisms of the European Prosecutor for the coverage provided by the Government to the former Minister Mr. K. Karamanlis, a member of the Government did not hesitate to direct his fire against the involvement of the European institutions and, specifically, the European Prosecutor in the case, saying that “we do not accept commissars or dervenages who will come to tell us what we will or will not do in our country”.
The cover-up attempted by the governing majority for the Tempe tragedy is another sign of the continuous degradation of the rule of law in our country by the Government of the New Democracy, as pointed out in the recent Resolution of the European Parliament. This Resolution of the European Parliament also highlighted the responsibilities of the Government and the Prime Minister personally for the scandal of wiretapping, the illegal use and export of surveillance technology, and condemned the cover-up efforts and the attacks by Ministers of the New Democracy towards the Independent Authorities that carry out their audit work with the government anxious about the decisions and rushing to change their composition, as happened with ADAE.
The latest example of the discrediting and serious decline of the rule of law and institutions in our country, for which the governing majority is solely responsible, is the transformation of the Ministry of the Interior into an electoral center of the New Democracy as shown by the illegal leakage and use of personal data of thousands of Greek voters from abroad to the ruling party and its candidates.
This unprecedented discrediting of the rule of law and institutions by the Government cannot continue. The governance of the Country can no longer be left in the hands of a Government which systematically undermines democracy and its institutions and which, on the altar of maintaining power and protecting its officials, does not hesitate to undermine any attempt to clear up a long-dead tragedy, misleading public opinion and going so far as to falsify evidence to ensure its political survival.
With the practices of undermining democracy itself as well as the discrediting of the institutions that the Government is carrying out, the trust of citizens towards politics, institutions and justice is shaken. This institutional and political pathogenicity comes to be added to the long-standing deterioration of the standard of living of the citizens, with the intensifying wave of exactitude, the tolerance of profiteering and the abandonment of the pillars of the welfare state – public education and public health system. Greece looks less and less like a modern European country, as the Government is unable to guarantee citizens a decent income, basic security and the timeless achievements of the welfare state.
For these reasons, we submit a motion of no confidence against the Government in accordance with article 84 par. 2 of the Constitution and article 142 of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament”.