By F. Zois
Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) wants to significantly boost passenger and freight traffic on rail operator Trainose’s network and is reportedly willing to back up its upcoming purchase in Greece with tens of millions in promised investments, according to reports that emanated from a briefing on Tuesday.
FS submitted the sole bid in an international tender for Trainose, with the 45-million-euro bid later accepted by Greece’s privatization fund (TAIPED or HRADF).
In a briefing with reporters on Tuesday, TAIPED chairman Stergios Pitsiorlas defended the sale price, saying it exceeded estimates by two independent firms of the Greek rail operator’s value by roughly five million euros.
“We didn’t sell even one rail car, nor the lines nor the property; what we sold was the right for the company to use the railway network,” he said, while adding, in response to questions, that Trainose is seriously understaffed at present.
Pitsiorlas predicted that FS will also emphasize passenger traffic, and not just freight.
The development comes in light of reports that the privatization fund will again declare a fast-track tender, as soon as Thursday, for the Trainose-affiliated rolling stock maintenance company, identified by its acronyms of Rosco or EESSTY, a week after a previous tender for the state-owned company failed to attract an offer.
The idea is for the transfers of Trainose and the rolling stock maintenance company to coincide.
In a bid to deflect criticism of the sale, mostly by unions and left-or-center political forces, Pitsiorlas said that a failure to privatize Trainose would have activated a ruling by the EU Commission demanding that the company return 750 million euros in previous state subsidies; money that Brussels said was illegally funneled into the loss-making state rail operator.
“The company would have been led to a solution entailing liquidation, while the employees would have been fired. Even if new companies were established and the same workers preferred (for the new operators), these hirings would have taken place from scratch, without taking previous experience and years of service into consideration (in order to determine wage scales),” Pitsiorlas said.
He said the sale of Trainose to FS allows for Greece’s rail network to directly link the port of Piraeus with the heart of western Europe.
The privatization chief also reiterated that Trainose doesn’t own any rolling stock, lines, bridges or other railway infrastructure, as it rents trains from Gaiose and leases the rail lines owned by the state holding company, OSE.
