Derailed investments

A political scientist or philosopher could go way back in assigning responsibility for the mess of the Greek railway system, stretching to Theodoros Diligiannis, the populist demagogue and rival of Harilaos Trikoupis in the mid-1800s. They could even go back to the very beginning of the modern Greek state and its ailments. But when it comes to public discourse, we need to be succinct and we need to look at the numbers. Any discussion that does not involve specific facts always becomes populist.

There’s a fine line between the phrase “They’re all the same,” which we hear people saying on the street about the country’s politicians and governments, and “We’re all to blame,” which we heard at Thursday’s cabinet meeting. When the notion that “we’re all to blame” is not made specific, it is tantamount to saying, “They’re all the same.” And this is harmful to democracy. And this is why we need to follow the money in looking for the real culprits behind the mess of the rail system and the National Railways Organization (OSE) that operates it.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) database contains information about investments in railway infrastructure. It doesn’t go very far back and the numbers for Greece are from the 2000-20 period. They are, nevertheless, illuminating. They tell us, for example, that important and increasingly large investments were made in the railway system in 2000-04, reaching 1.7 billion euros, or 0.9% of gross domestic product, in 2003 alone.

Important and increasingly large investments were made in the railway system in 2000-04, reaching 1.7 billion euros

Things started going downhill from there, as investments dropped to between 0.1% and 02% of GDP to 250-350 million euros. In other words, investments over the entire five-year term of the conservative Kostas Karamanlis government almost equaled those made in one year, in 2003.

Then came the bailout years (2005-09) and railway infrastructure investments and the country’s finances derailed. Again they ranged between 0.1% and 0.2% of GDP, rising to 0.3% of GDP only in 2016. But there are two years when they were absolutely paltry: 2014, when they came to 59,358,735 euros, and 2020, when they were even less, at 49,008,544 euros.

The issue, therefore, is not that an accident occurred during this government’s tenure; it could have happened to anyone, at any time. The issue is why investments in the railway system and its safety were so measly during this government’s tenure. So, instead of worrying whether the resigned transport minister will run for office as an MP in the next election, we should start asking him why investments nosedived under his stewardship.