Watch live the statements of the Minister of State, also in charge of infrastructure and transport, Giorgos Herapetritis safety on the railways after a tragic accident on Tempe.

The following are the points of Mr. Gerapetritis’s statement:

• An unprecedented national tragedy that marked us all
• This suffering must find catharsis
• I’m not here for partisan confrontation and offsets
• The current government has taken responsibility
• We apologize on behalf of the government for not being able to prevent this incredible accident.
• I am here, on the one hand, to ensure the continuation of the investigation, and on the other hand, to formulate a framework of action for the restart of the railways from a safety point of view.
• I have no authority to interfere with the actual distribution of responsibilities
• I am at the disposal of the parliament, I will provoke a debate in the competent committee to find common ground that will distribute responsibilities and at the same time evaluate transport security issues.
• In the coming days, the administration of the EfE and ERGOSE will be replaced. We will continue to work with the new administration to restart the railroad as quickly as possible.
• Three security levels were not met at Tempe
• There was no disconnection of the remote control of the Larisa center. And the fateful night was supposed to be fixed by automatic laying of the course, which she did not.
• Manual key change
• According to the protocol, after the departure of the train there should have been control on the control panel “Larisa”. If there was monitoring, then the lethal outcome could have been avoided.
• The train left on the wrong track, but there was no reaction from the train.
• If we had a universal remote control system in our country, despite the problem of the human factor, the tragedy could have been avoided.
• The railroad was subject to perpetual obsolescence due to maintenance as well as necessary upgrades.
• In 2014, for the first time, an agreement was concluded for a universal upgrade of the electronic infrastructure: an alarm and a universal remote control function.
• The contract was partially developed by 2017 (about 32%). There were bugs in the delivery, 18% of them were really functional.
• In 2017, the implementation of the contract was halted due to serious implementation errors.
• The competent authority finds the presence of errors and the execution of the contract is suspended.
• From 2017 to 2019 we do not have delivery.
• Since June 2019, there has been an attempt to terminate the contract.
• To date, 70% of the contract has been completed, and, according to our estimates, we will also deliver the remaining percentage within a year.

Cabinet

It is recalled that tomorrow, Thursday, a meeting is expected in the Cabinet of Ministers with the exclusive subject of the tragedy in Tempe and the institutional steps and interventions to be taken, and on Friday the Prime Minister will visit the President of the Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

The visit, according to government sources, takes place in the context of their monthly regular meetings and is not linked to pre-election scenarios, as some suggest.

After all, the elections as wrote yesterday “K”will almost certainly go to May, since it is considered impossible to schedule surveys a month from today.

This prospect implies the announcement of elections next week, a very short time after the tragedy, as Greek society is still in shock from the accident.