Mr. Tsipras is making political moves and is not interested in reality, he said Minister of State Giorgos Gerapetritisanswering the questions raised by the rapporteurs of the opposition parties.

He emphasized that “the government gave answers to everything in the Production and Trade Committee last week. There is no intention to diffuse blame.” The Railway Accident Investigation Committee that has been voted on will be set up and provided for by the EU. For the understaffing of the OSE, I gave detailed figures of 420 recruitments in these three and a half years against 24 recruitments made in the four and a half years of the SYRIZA government. RAS is an independent authority and it is not right, if there are no obvious things, to proceed with replacements of its management members. We did not want to change the Board of Directors of independent authorities on the eve of elections, as was done in others whose terms have expired. This is a politically responsible stance.”

Regarding the characterizations of “liar” and “misleading the people” that have been attributed to him these days, SYRIZA MP Nikos Pappas said that “constitutes a moral insult”. As for whether there is remote control or not, things are simple according to the OSE documents, the minister said, emphasizing: “What I told you is that we have local remote control in Larissa which is for 8.5 kilometers. I’m not fooling anyone. Five kilometers north of the station and three kilometers south of the station. I’m not trying to fool anyone. The lights came on on the board and the stationmaster could see the train’s course. There was a light indication of the course and the possibility of automatic marking. If you doubt this we can go and see it. Let’s go next Friday and see them together.”

Mr. Gerapetritis complained that “the president of SYRIZA is in Larissa and instead of going to the local remote control station, the central station that you say, he went and saw the building that will be completed in September 2023 and the system will be there hyperlocal remote control”. The minister described Mr. Tsipras’ moves as “political”.

It should be noted that Mr Gerapetritis left before the end of the meeting as he was leaving for Brussels.