Posted by 
Greece’s conservative government survived a vote of no-confidence on Thursday triggered by the opposition over its handling of a deadly train crash.
Four opposition parties had accused the government of attempting to cover up potential political liabilities over a Feb. 28 train crash in Tempi that killed 57 people, most of them students. The accident was the deadliest of its kind in the country’s history.
Some 158 MPs from the ruling New Democracy party were joined by a single MP from the far-right Spartans party in rejecting the no-confidence motion in the 300-seat parliament.
The opposition had put forward the vote after a report in the To Vima newspaper alleged an audio file, which was leaked to the media in the hours following the head-on collision between the two trains, had been doctored to make it appear the accident was caused by human error rather than by Greece’s aging rail network.
Ahead of the parliamentary vote Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis dismissed the report as “misleading,” arguing the full transcripts had been “available to the judicial authorities from the beginning.”
“You are saying that my concern and thought was to tamper with these dialogues. Aren’t you ashamed to say so?” he asked. “It is legitimate for business people and publishers to want to influence politics. Let them get into the arena themselves and not by proxy.”
Earlier in the day, two top Mitsotakis aides — Minister of State Stavros Papastavrou and Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister Yiannis Bratakos — resigned after allegedly spending a night at the house of media mogul and shipowner Evangelos Marinakis, who also owns To Vima. The gathering took place a day after the paper published its damning story.
The Greek government has confirmed the meeting occurred, although Bratakos and Papastavrou have yet to comment. State Minister Makis Voridis dismissed the event as a mere social gathering.
Greek news website iEidiseis, describing the gathering, said “the whiskey flowed abundantly and was interrupted only for smoking the luxurious cigars,” adding: “The ‘stern messages’ turned into plenty of wine, cigars and whiskey.”
Greece’s government has been faulted for failing to heed a call from the European public prosecutor to take action regarding the potential criminal liability of two former transport ministers following the train crash.
According to Greek law, only the country’s parliament can investigate allegations of misconduct against former ministers.
“We are blocked in applying justice, because if you are forbidden to make the investigations, you cannot find out the truth,” said European Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruța Kövesi. “The provision in the [Greek] Constitution has to be changed, and this is why we have asked this and we have sent a letter to the European Commission.”
Mitsotakis accused her on Thursday of interfering in an ongoing case. “She has exceeded the limits of her power,” he said of Codruța Kövesi.
The Greek public, meanwhile, still wants answers on the train crash, with almost nine in 10 respondents in a poll by Metron Analysis saying neither the judicial nor the political establishment had ensured justice was served after the tragedy. A separate survey by the Alco pollster found that 77 percent of respondents believed a cover-up had taken place.
