Civil servants, including teachers, nurses and bus drivers, joined railway staff members, who have been holding rolling strikes for a week, to protest the years of neglect and understaffing that they say had made the crash all but inevitable. The civil servants’ union, Adedy, called for an end to “policies of privatization” which were adopted during Greece’s post-2009 decade-long financial crisis and led to staff cuts.
The rally in Athens was one of the biggest in recent years, drawing some 40,000 people, according to police estimates. The march was marred by violence, with the police firing tear gas after a group of around 50 hooded youths broke away from the demonstration and pelted officers with firebombs and stones.
Many of the demonstrators were young people, including college students, who accounted for a large proportion of the train crash victims. The students joined the marchers, many chanting, “Murderers!” Others carried banners with red hand prints, one reading, “Our tears have run dry and turned into anger.” Scuffles also broke out between protesters and the police in Thessaloniki and Patra, in western Greece.
Greece’s failure to upgrade its railway system to European standards — in spite of receiving millions of euros in subsidies — had come under scrutiny well before the crash. A contract signed in 2014 for the automatic operation and signaling of the railway network is the subject of an inquiry by the European prosecutor’s office.
That investigation comes amid an inquiry begun two weeks before the crash by the European Commission into Greece’s failure to comply with E.U. rules on rail transport.
Even if an electronic signaling and surveillance system had been completed, it would have had to have been accompanied by another system allowing for emergency braking among other features, Mr. Gerapetritis said, referring to the European Train Control System.
According to the government’s spokesman, Giannis Oikonomou, Mr. Mitsotakis plans to request additional E.U. funding for modernizing the country’s railways.
Mr. Mitsotakis ordered the creation of a cross-party committee of experts last week to examine the causes of the tragedy, which is also being investigated by the Supreme Court’s prosecutor, Isidoros Doyiakos, along with the systemic failings of the Greek rail system and delays in the completion of a technological upgrade of infrastructure.
