People gather in front of the Greek parliament during a protest, marking the second anniversary of the country's worst railway disaster, while an investigation continues, in Athens, Greece on Feb 28. Louiza Vradi / REUTERS
In February 2023, Greece was stunned by the worst train crash in the country's history, which left 57 people dead and dozens more injured. But despite an inquiry ruling that inadequate staffing, poor maintenance, and human error had contributed to the incident, so far, no senior politicians have faced any action.
Coming as this did on top of other major public safety incidents in previous years, following Greece's high-profile austerity program in the aftermath of the financial crisis, public anger has reached boiling point.
The second anniversary of the crash saw mass protests that drew crowds of hundreds of thousands of people to cities across the country, which ended with rocks and petrol bombs being thrown, and riot police being deployed.
"This is not just about the train crash, it is about the way the government and the justice system has handled it," Eva Cosse, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch in Athens, told Reuters. "The crash highlighted deep-seated problems with governance and accountability and the rule of law."
The center-right government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis came to power in 2019, following a 2018 wildfire in the seaside town of Mati, where 104 people died awaiting evacuation, and after flash floods in 2017, which saw 25 people die amid claims of poor infrastructure and failure by the authorities to react to warnings.
The New Democracy party was re-elected in the summer of 2023, after the train crash, with Mitsotakis calling the comfortable victory "a safe majority" and saying "major reforms will proceed rapidly", but since then the public mood has turned against the government.
Earlier this month, it survived a confidence vote in the country's parliament, and Mitsotakis ruled out a snap general election, but has since reshuffled his Cabinet, including appointing a new transport minister, and, in an acknowledgement of the feeling provoked by the train crash, pledged to improve the country's infrastructure, saying that "what has been done in recent years is simply not enough".
"The citizens — both those who marched in protest and those who grieved in silence — demanded the obvious: truth and justice for the victims, a state that takes action to ensure such a tragedy is never repeated, (and) safe and modern public transport that the country deserves," he said.
However, with Greece having come second-last among eurozone countries in the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index published by campaign group Transparency International, hopes of a new, more trustworthy and accountable era in Greek politics are not high, and the mood is unlikely to change.
"We have no expectation that, at some point within a reasonable time, our case will be treated fairly," said lawyer Alexandros Papasteriopoulos, who represents relatives of the victims of the Mati fire. "Politicians are untouchable."
