Greek civil servants, teachers, ferry crews, and train and bus drivers are among the workers walking off their jobs Wednesday following Greece’s worst-ever train crash last week that killed 57 people and is sparking a political backlash against Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
(Bloomberg) — Greek civil servants, teachers, ferry crews, and train and bus drivers are among the workers walking off their jobs Wednesday following Greece’s worst-ever train crash last week that killed 57 people and is sparking a political backlash against Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
A week after the tragedy, public anger is mounting over the causes of the accident, which occurred when a passenger train traveling from Athens to Thessaloniki and a freight train collided at high speed on the same track in the Tempe valley of central Greece.
“We demand, together with all workers and the people, that the policy of privatizations be put to an end and that the real reasons for the murderous crime of Tempe be found,” Adedy, the umbrella organization for public sector labor unions, said in a statement announcing the 24-hour strike.
The collision ignited a fire with the temperature in burning car reaching as high as 1,300C (2,372F). Many on board and among those killed were students returning to their places of study following a long holiday weekend.
The crash has raised questions about how the Greek state functions amid claims that the country hasn’t upgraded its rail network in line with European Union requirements. The new transportation minister, appointed after his predecessor resigned following the crash, has planned a press conference for later Wednesday to present the government’s initiatives to upgrade Greece’s railway infrastructure.
“In Greece of 2023, it is not possible for two trains to run on opposite sides of the same track without anyone noticing,” Mitsotakis said in a public apology on Sunday in a post on his Facebook page. He reiterated though that the accident was triggered by a human error by saying that “we cant, we don’t want and we shouldn’t,” hide behind it.
The train accident adds to the pressure Mitsotakis is facing following disclosures last year that the country’s national intelligence service spied on the leader of Greece’s opposition socialist Pasok party, and a reporter investigating powerful business figures.
The Greek premier’s term ends in July. Before the deadly event, Mitsotakis’s center-right New Democracy party consistently led in polls and the premier was expected to call an early election. No new polls have been published since the accident.
A first ballot will take place under a straightforward proportional representation system, making it hard to have a single-party government with the probable need for a second general election around a month later. That vote will happen under a semi-proportional system that makes it easier to shape a government.
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