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Thirty-six railway routes in Greece were terminated in early July this year. Most of them are in areas of northern Greece and the Peloponnesian Peninsula. The reason is the giant debt the company has amassed in recent years. According to specialists from the Greek TRAINOSE the country loses € 4.5 million a year only from the lines Corinth - Tripoli and Patras - Pyrgos - Kalamata.
 
The case with the Greek state railways may prove to be quite indicative for the overall situation of the Greek economy. The state monopoly enterprise for railway transport registers annual deficit of one billion euros more than a decade. Total amount of shortages equals 3.6 percent of GDP and if the Government and in particular the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport do not resort to radical changes in the management and operation of the company, this measure will only grow upwards.

According to а publication in the Greek newspaper Ethnos scandalous deals and corrupt practices have been draining billions from the state company for years and today it dies under the burden of its large deficit. Anonymous representative of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport told about a series of illegal deals of railways’ real estate that were let for a mere song, about purchases of nonexistent cars and scrapping others without the necessary  documentation. One example of the ineffectiveness of the railway property management is the case of K1 and K2 buildings in Triyasio. The two halls were built in early 2004 to shelter the maintenance of train parts and equipment. The total investment cost was around € 20 million. In the middle of the year the railway company lent out the hall K1 which has an area of 20,000 square meters to the organization “Athens 2004” for 12 months and annual rent of

€ 4,200,000. Since 2006, both buildings were lent to private companies that used them as storage facilities. The monthly rent that individuals pay is only € 100 on the grounds that the companies employ only 20 square meters of the hall, although in fact they use the entire area of the premises. We can not fail to note that the annual operating costs of maintaining the two buildings reached € 700,000, and unpaid bills for electricity and water have surpassed € 10 million.

This is just one of the stories that can answer the question where ten billion euros of the railways went during the last decade. At present, the case of buildings K1 and K2 is considered by the Athens first instance court, and the prosecution is determined to seek criminal liability of the responsible. Lack of control and management conscience leads to other accidents: a company that rented another property of the railways but did not pay the rent for eight months. As a result the company owes € 700,000 or assessment reduction of property with 50% of market value before being sold and many other similar cases.

For five years, the Greek national railway company has been restructured four times and four of which failed, which also cost the state hundreds of millions of euros. Since 2004 companies, organizations, controlling commissions such as National Administration for Railway Infrastructure, then ERGOSE for the railway project management, YAAOSE  for real estate management (we realized how effective was the operation ofthis company), Suburban railway and more have been established and closed. The dramatic increase in the debt of the organization in 2004 shocked the entire community. Today the Greek Railways face 2.5 times higher deficit of nine billion euros compared to the € 3.2 billion six years ago. In case the government does not offer the loss-making enterprise for privatization (as opposed to trade unions), in 2015 the state will have to repay credit commitments worth over € 1.1 billion/year and in 2016 this value will be at least € 1.54 billion.