Greece suffered the worst train crash disaster in its history. The frequency of serious accidents in the railways network increased when the country was forced to privatize parts of the previously fully state-owned railways.
The privatizations came after the Greek default in 2010, when the Troika of Greece's creditors demanded mass privatizations in every sector.
This resulted in the fragmentation of the railways services among private companies, leaving the network under public control. It's pretty much the same model implemented in the UK. There, after the privatization and fragmentation of the British railways among private companies, serious problems emerged, with accidents and safety issues occurring more frequently.
Of course the Greek case turned out to be much worse because most privatizations were actually sell-outs carried out under the extreme pressure of the creditors with which foreign and local interests were connected.
Private interests were celebrating the electoral victory of Kyriakos Mitsotakis back in 2019 because they brought their man to power. As we wrote back then, the voters elected perhaps the most fanatically neoliberal government ever. This means that Mitsotakis administration is expected to implement the brutal neoliberal policies imposed by Greece's creditors to the letter. Recall that those policies deepened the recession and made things worse for the economy.
Mitsotakis himself and most of his top executives are fanatically devoted to failed neoliberalism. They literally hate anything under public control as well as trade unionists. And this explains why they completely ignored unionists' repeated warnings about the serious technical problems and under-staffing of the railways.
Privatizations have failed everywhere. Railways must be fully nationalized and modernized, with all the staff, infrastructure and equipment under public control.
In Greece, this can become reality only if the current Mitsotakis regime suffer a heavy defeat in the oncoming elections.
Comments
Post a Comment