Despite the warnings, the Greek authorities did not react in time to secure the railway system.
After the accident in which 57 people lost their lives, the executive director of the EU Railway Agency clarified that they had warned Athens many times in recent years, including in the 2022 report, where the situation was presented as gloomy.
“During the last two years, we have seen that Greece has been ranked among the countries with the weakest infrastructure. So there has been a low safety performance, which is measured by the number of fatal accidents compared to the length of the networks and the number of passengers per kilometer. We have found an anomaly yet with the national investigative body, as we have not received a report on any investigation carried out,” said Josef Doppelbauer, head of the EU Railway Agency.
The European Commission has spent 700 million euros for the modernization of the railway system in Greece since 2014 and plans to spend another 130 million within the Recovery Fund. At the same time, Greece should have implemented the European Train Control System from 2020, which should have included the point where the two trains collided, but this did not happen. “It is problematic that the money was not spent properly. Also worrying is the fact that the implementation of the European system for railway management has been postponed to 2023,” said Doppelbauer.
The Greek government has launched an investigation into the incident, while the manager of the Larissa railway station was arrested a few hours after the accident and charged with “manslaughter as a result of negligence”. However, could this “human error” have been avoided if the automatic system had been deployed as planned.
“We do not know what was the main cause of the accident. But such systems are made to reduce the risk of human error. They dramatically reduce these chances. So if the system is activated, the chances of a human error would be much lower,” explained Doppelbauer. The official, along with other European Commission experts, will visit Greece on Wednesday to offer the country further support in modernizing the railways and improving their safety.
