Greece rejected EU prosecutor’s call for action against 2 ex-ministers after rail crash

ATHENS — Greece’s government dismissed a call from the European public prosecutor to take action over the potential criminal liability of two former transport ministers after a deadly train collision that convulsed the country last February.

Protesters poured into the streets last year after 57 people — many of them students — died in the country’s worst train disaster on Feb. 28. They blamed top-level mismanagement and corruption for the head-on collision between a freight train and passenger train at Tempi in the north of the country.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) supported those suspicions last month when it charged 23 suspects — including 18 public officials — for crimes linked to the execution of contracts on remote traffic control and signalling systems on the network, co-funded by the EU. 

EPPO had even bigger targets in its sights, however: two former ministers.

In a letter sent by EPPO prosecutor Popi Papandreou on June 2 to the Greek authorities, and seen by POLITICO, she noted that during the investigation into the crash “suspicions have arisen regarding alleged criminal offences committed by former members of the Greek Government.”

“These alleged criminal offences regard breach of duty committed by the former Minister Christos Spirtzis and misappropriation committed by former Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis,” Papandreou wrote in the document.

“We ask for you to take your own actions,” she continued.

This demand for action against the two former ministers is based on a peculiarity of Greek law that only parliament can conduct investigations into allegations of misconduct against former ministers.

The Greek government buried the case politically, however, by using its parliamentary majority to dismiss the need for an investigative committee.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis initially blamed the incident on “tragic human error” but was forced to backtrack after he was accused of trying to cover up the government’s role.

EPPO considers the Greek constitutional quirk — that only parliament can pursue action against ministers — to contravene EU law and has raised the impasse with the European Commission.

“It is up to the Commission to follow up the incompatibilities of the national law with the EU law,” European Chief Prosecutor  Laura Codruța Kövesi said in an interview with POLITICO, when asked about the blockage in Greece. “The Commission knows about the situation, it’s very public, but what they will do, I cannot comment.”

Ministerial responsibility

Karamanlis resigned after the crash, saying he was stepping down “as a basic indication of respect for the memory of the people who died so unfairly.” He was reelected in his northern constituency in Serres with the ruling New Democracy party in June’s national elections.

Christos Spirtzis, who served as transport minister under the previous left-wing Syriza led government, was not reelected.

EPPO’s Papandreou wrote she was referring Spirtzis over “the crime of breach of duty.”

She gave more details on Karamanlis, saying she was referring his case over “the crime of misappropriation against the financial interests of the European Union and the Greek State, from which the damage caused exceeds a total of €120,000” in relation to repairs and upgrades of rail signals and switches.

The EPPO case file on Spirtzis and Karamanlis was referred to the Greek Supreme Court, and from there to the Greek parliament. Parliament then had to decide whether it would set up a preliminary inquiry committee to investigate whether the case should be brought before a special court.

The Greek Supreme Court sent the case files to Konstantinos Tasoulas, speaker of parliament, on June 29, according to a document seen by POLITICO.

In November, parliament considered whether to set up a preliminary investigative committee for former ministers, including Spirtzis and Karamanlis. The center-left Pasok party referred to EPPO’s findings during the debate and supported the idea. Ultimately, however, the proposal was rejected and the case was archived.

Spirtzis told POLITICO he personally had supported parliament setting up a preliminary investigation as a way to reject the allegations against him and added he had requested to be treated just as any other Greek citizen. He added there should be no statute of limitations because of the special regulation on ministers. “Unfortunately, New Democracy didn’t support my request,” he added.

¨While speaking to parliament in late November, he said the investigation would prove his innocence and provide “a definitive answer to New Democracy’s attempt to spread political responsibility.”

Karamanlis didn’t reply to a request for comment and referred to a speech he made in November.

While speaking to parliament, Karamanlis said he opposed Pasok’s proposal for an investigative committee.

“I immediately resigned and made my resignation public, on the way back [from Tempi] and before I even arrived in Athens,” he said. “This was dictated by my morals and principles. I took objective political responsibility not only for my own term, but also for the terms of all my predecessors. This is extremely rare in the political morals of our country.”

Greece’s government and the office of the parliamentary speaker did not respond to requests for comment.

‘I wouldn’t load vegetables’ on Greek railway

The parliament eventually decided to set up a broader parliamentary inquiry to “investigate the crime at Tempi and all related aspects.”

Its credibility has already been eroded, however. Instead of focusing on the crash, the inquiry is running through the whole history of the Greek railway system over the past decades, while the New Democracy ruling majority rejected proposals for cross-party representation in the chair.

Opposition parties accuse the government of a cover-up, while last week the family of the train driver who lost his life in the crash sent a legal notice to the committee, accusing New Democracy’s representative in the committee of “attempting to shift blame onto the deceased driver by using medical documents, creating impressions of medical issues that supposedly rendered him unfit for work.”

“So where is the effort where we will reveal the truth?” asked Maria Karystianou, who lost her 20-year-old daughter in the crash, while speaking at the inquiry on Wednesday. “When I found out how the railway worked, I wouldn’t even load vegetables on it.”

She insisted she should be testifying in a court and not in parliament, complaining lawmakers did not have the competence for such a probe. Protesting against the immunity awarded to Karamanlis as an MP, she accused his colleagues of having no “legal standing,” to take on a case that had robbed “the lives of so many young people.”

Elisa Braün contributed reporting