PM Mitsotakis gives first interview after Tempi rail disaster, promises in-depth reform, restructuring; elex in May

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday gave his first interview after a deadly Feb. 28 train collision in north-central Greece, a shocking accident that dented his and the center-right government’s approval ratings just months or weeks before he declares a scheduled general election.

The videotaped interview was given to a former political rival, journalist and TV presenter Stavros Theodorakis, and aired late in the evening on an Athens-based television station.

«We all want to know the truth and I’ll make sure we shed abundant light on what happened that night, and how we got here… Obviously, there were a number of human errors, but if things related to the trains had been different, the accident probably wouldn’t have happened», Mitsotakis said.

He also promised to renegotiate a concession contract with Hellenic Train, Italian rail operator FS’s subsidiary in Greece, which was the sole bidder for Trainose, the previously state-run train operator in Greece. One of the two trains that collided belonged to Hellenic Train, a passenger service; the other was a freight train.

It’s state-run Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE), however, that’s been in the “eye of the storm” after the two-train collision, due to charges of long-standing omissions, poor management, inferior staff training, and above all, human error involving a junior station master (traffic director) who, by all accounts, shifted the north-bound passenger train into the path the south-bound freight train just south of the Tempi Valley Gorge entrance. OSE owns and maintain rail infrastructure and the track networks in the country, and is the train traffic operator.

The current government and previous governments have also come under sharp criticism by the media, in social media and in the wider public opinion for the state of the paltry – by European standards -rail network in Greece.

Asked by Theodorakis over what he called past “corrupt contracts” in the rail sector that were doled out over past decades by the Greek state, and which ultimately failed to improve safety, Mitsotakis stated:

«OSE has been throughout time, and even during New Democracy’s tenure, a prominent ‘hole’ of the Greek state. Even accumulated debts made Olympic Airways (debts) appear as very small…If I’m not mistaken, 16 billion euros were written off during the memoranda years. It’s debt. This was money given by the Greek taxpayer», he said.

In response to other questions, he said general elections will be held in May, without specifying which Sunday of the month will be picked, while also pointing to a need for a second election in quick order to result in a majority government.