Some of the first reverberations from Friday’s massive protest rallies around Greece on the two-year anniversary of the Tempi rail disaster came a day later on Saturday, with the national economy and finance minister referring to a “model” – previously used to reform a handful of state-run utilities and organizations – as eyed for the public Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), which owns and manages the rail infrastructure and network in the east Mediterranean country.
The two-train collision late on the evening of Feb. 28, 2023 resulted in the death of 57 people, as a freight train slammed into a passenger train, both operated by a private company, FS subsidiary Hellenic Train.
Public opinion anger over the deadly rail accident has not abated since then, with families of the victims and survivors demanding answers on how such a catastrophic mishap could have occurred and for punishment of the guilty, including responsibility by political leadership. Most of the criticism has been targeted at the current Mitsotakis government, which was in power in February 2023, and despite the fact that ruling New Democracy (ND) has handily won elections since then.
National Economy & Finance Minister Kostis Hatzidakis.
“It’s certain that OSE is identified with the ‘deep state’ in Greece and must follow the path of OTE, PPA, PPC and EFKA in the past, where we remember their terrible condition at time, followed by the improvement achieved since then,” Minister Kostis Hatzidakis said.
He was referring to the previously state-owned telephony provider-cum monopoly OTE, whose management was sold off to German multinational DT, the Piraeus Port Authority (PPA), whose majority stake and management was sold to Shanghai-based shipping giant Cosco in 2016, the previously debt-laden and nearly bankrupt Public Power Corp. (PPC) – the erstwhile electricity monopoly in Greece – and the Greek state’s biggest social security and health fund, EFKA.
Hatzidakis didn’t go into details over which restructuring model should be employed, as OTE and the country’s biggest port authority passed into private ownership and long-term management (for PPA), while PPC changed its management structure to operate more along the lines of a private corporation but with the state still controlling a majority of its shares. EFKA was reformed, per the minister, while remaining a wholly state entity.
At the same time, a top ministry source that spoke to ot.gr said there was no thought at present by the center-right government to privatize OSE, “nevertheless, there’s certainly needs to be a restructuring and modernization to improve its operation.”
The same source added that “…today, with existing conditions, it’s impossible to rouse private interest…However, within the context of a restructuring, OSE could, for example, recruit managers from the private sector.”
In terms of the day’s public statements, Hatzidakis, a previous transport minister more than a decade ago, said “…on the one hand there’s state-owned OSE, which needs to be upgraded, modernized; to become a European organization… and, on the other hand, there’s Hellenic Train, which is Italian-owned, and which must also do what needs to be done, and this will be demanded by the Greek government.”
“The message from yesterday’s protest rally (scores were held around the country and abroad) is to accelerate our actions even more. For example, the main issue related to the (Tempi) tragedy, to some extent, is the remote (rail) management and control system. (Contract) 717 was completed in September 2023 throughout the entire network. What simply followed was the storm Daniel (early September 2023), which destroyed a very large portion of the network in Thessaly (province), where (repair/restoration) works have restarted.”
