OUR European Commission yesterday explained the reasons why Greece was mentioned European Court in mid-February, and they do not deal with rail safety issues. In particular, our country was referred to the European Court of Justice for non-compliance with the directive establishing the Common European Railway Area (2012/34/EU), according to which the Member States must ensure the signing of an agreement between the Greek State and the National Infrastructure Manager (OSE). In short, we are talking about contracts related to subsidies from the Greek state for OSE. This issue has been under consideration since June 2015.

“We cannot say under what circumstances the accident could have been prevented, this is the subject of an investigation, which is a national responsibility,” the Commission representative emphasized, adding that “the Commission’s decision to apply to the European Court of Justice relates to a contractual agreement between the competent national authority and the network operator Railways (RNO). “In accordance with Community law, the conclusion and publication of such an agreement is an obligation for reasons of transparency in relation to projects and the use of Community funds and is not directly related to railway safety,” he said.

Our country was held accountable for failure to comply with the directive on the creation of the Common Railway Space.

Need to update

At the next briefing of European correspondents, the issue of financing the modernization of the Greek railway network was also touched upon. The Representative of the Commission noted that the Greek government recognized the need to update it and indeed recognized it as a priority in the Recovery and Resilience Plan, and in the context of its implementation, in October last year, it approved a law to provide additional resources to OSE and ERGOZ. He noted that Greece’s December budget allocated an additional $50 million to railway maintenance from a public investment program, and the completion of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) is included in the Recovery and Sustainability Plan with a milestone for the end of 2023. Additional funds of $130 million will be allocated, he said, to three public-private partnership projects to modernize the existing railway infrastructure.