Let it all come to parliament documents of negotiations between the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and Hellenic Trainhis deputy group asks together SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance.

According to the Request for Submission of Documents submitted to the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport G. Gerapetritis, MPs of the Official Opposition with the first signatory Alexis Tsiprasrequest drafts and draft agreements, minutes of meetings, correspondence, email documents, letters and anything else related to the negotiations between the two parties that mediated from the signing of the memorandum of cooperation in April 2019 to the signed HRD 2022 contract, which was ratified by Parliament in July 2022, including, of course, the draft of a new contract for persons with disabilities, which recently saw the light of day.

As the deputies of SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance state in the text of the ACP, “in the annex to the memorandum (art.: signed in November 2019 by Mr. Ach. Karamanlis and the then managing director of TRAINOSE F. Tsalidis), after the amount of 750 million euros, they are defined as compensation for provision of public services on behalf of TRAINOSE, describes the benefits to the Greek economy from this 15-year new contract to be signed, which amount to 2.52 billion euros, including an investment by an Italian company of hundreds of millions of euros.”

Further: “However, although the final contract was supposed to be signed at the end of 2020, it was finally signed (after the extension of the previous contract in 2016) in April 2022 and ratified by Parliament in July 2022. […] In this agreement, it was discovered with surprise and justified displeasure that, on the one hand, the provisions for the benefit of the Greek economy, which were mentioned in the aforementioned memorandum and amounted to a huge amount of 2.52 billion euros, came from the payments and investments of the Italian company for the Greek railway , and that, on the other hand, he has “made wings” out of the investment as such, that the Italian company will make a dizzying amount of 600, approximately, million euros.

Referring to the publications of recent days, they emphasize that the commitment of the Greek state to the implementation and commissioning of a number of projects that are underway or planned for implementation has also made “wings”, the first two of them:

– “1. Completion of the signaling on the Piraeus – Athens – Thessaloniki – Idomeni Axis (ERGOSE 717 Agreement) by the end of 2021, and

-2. Commissioning of ETCS along the Piraeus-Athens-Thessaloniki-Idomeni axis (ERGOSE Contract 10005) by the end of 2021.

That is, two specific projects, the non-completion of which could not have prevented the human error that led to the Tempe tragedy.”

Deputies of SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance also ask Mr. herapetritis a number of questions about subsequent procedures.

Request for a Committee on Institutions and Transparency

At the same time, SYRIZA asks the Speaker of the Parliament to immediately convene the Parliamentary Committee on Institutions and Transparency with a letter from Giorgos Katrougalos, Deputy Chairman of the above committee, to “investigate the causes of the tragedy in Tempe, calling the following persons:

1. Former Minister of Transport Mr. K. Karamanlis, Deputy Ministers Mr. M. Papadopoulos and G. Karagiannis and General Secretary Mr. I. Hifaras.

2. Mr. K. Hatzidakis, as the first Minister to award contract 10005/2007 on behalf of the public for the ETCS management system.

3. Current and previous manuals (if replaced after an accident) by OSE, ERGOSE and Hellenic Train.

4. Representatives of the Panhellenic Federation of Railways, the Panhellenic Union of OSE Stationmasters and OSE Train Drivers.”

With information from APE-MPE