The autonomous Ministry of Transport and the decline of the railway all remembered the Hellenic Train the Greek cotton and customs

The autonomous Ministry of Transport and the decline of the railway Autonomous Ministry of Transport seems to have Greece, almost 15 years after the then government decision of George Papandreou on the unification of the Ministry of Transport and Communications with the Ministry of Environment, Planning and Public Works. The Ministry of Environment and Regional Planning was then separated and the current Ministry of Environment and Energy (ENP) was created. Public works and transport remained in the single Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. Now Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis believes that the division of the ministry and the creation of a separate ministry for transport can support the effort to put a brake on the decline of the railway so that we do not experience new tragedies as in Tempi about two years ago. The older ones remember that the great sins in the works of OSE were made during the period when there was a separate Ministry of Transport! That’s when we learned about the studies of the Western Greece railway, that’s when the telemanagement and signalling projects were being delivered and within a few months they were going to be spent to announce new ones, etc. So it’s not enough for a separate ministry. It takes executives to support the revolution needed to resurrect the Greek railway within the next decade. Appropriate legislative interventions, other arrangements and procedures are needed. Suddenly everyone remembered the Hellenic Train Crowd of Ministers, with the chief transport officer Christos Staikouras, stating in recent days that the government would denounce it with Hellenic Train if it was found, for example, that the freight train that collided frontally with Intercity in Tempe carried unreported flammable materials. Just like that, according to the ministers, we’ll throw the Italians who control Hellenic Train into the sea and replace them with whom? We’re going to state the company we privatized about ten years ago against 45 lousy millions? Neither the competent minister nor the other ministers who display a ‘competitive attitude’ against Hellenic Train have understood for so many years that the latter is behind the weaknesses of the OSE in order not to provide more quality services? What have they done to improve the state and fully dissolved OSE the level of maintenance of the railway network so that Hellenic Train can also improve its services? Do they know that, because of the perennial shortage of OSE, a public contract complaint will lead to appeals from Hellenic Train that may cost the Greek public more than 45 billion dollars from the sale of TRAINOSE? If it is finally found that there was an illegal load on the Tembe commercial train, will it only be the Hellenic Train that the various ministers are oversimplifying or should the entire circuit that was smuggling illegally and dangerously be searched for on Greek trains? The Greek cotton and the duty party! Fasten up as D. Trump. The US has already announced the imposition of a 25% duty on Canada and Mexico and an increase of 10% on imports from China. Everything shows that the time is coming for Europe which the President of the United States has warned about because he has “behaviored” his country! Greek exports may not have a large report in the US, but the latter account for almost one out of five euro European exports. Furthermore, the US is the second largest supplier of the European Union with a share of around 14%. You will already have read that Greek exports and the economy are ‘armored’ against the duties that Donald Trump is preparing to impose on the EU. It is good to be concerned when we hear the word ‘armored economy’. Nobody knows where the new setting is going. Due to Trump duties, the price of cotton yields to levels that had reached when the pandemic broke out. China is the world’s largest imports of cotton. Cotton is one of Greece’s main export products… Canada, Mexico and China have announced that they are moving on to countermeasures while the EU is ready. Trade wars now begin with an unknown conclusion. The scenarios for the National Insurance Understanding Memorandum (MoU) to investigate the possibility of an agreement appear to have been signed by Piraeus Bank and CVC Capital Partners for National Insurance. The procedures were confirmed on Friday (31.12025) by the management of Piraeus Bank with an announcement on the Stock Exchange but somewhere in the distance the National Bank that still maintains 9.99% of National Insurance. The Director General of Retail Banking of the National Bank Christina Theophilides participates, as a non-executive member, in the Board of Directors of National Insurance. The new Dimitris Mazarakis administration in National Insurance has not been able to show the changes it promotes in order for the company to regain its pace. Why would they rush into CVC for selling a company they bought three years ago? Aris Stephatos in the realm of delays The head of EYEP, the state company responsible for promoting research on hydrocarbons in Greece and offshore wind farms, is a market man. Aris Stephatos gave up a successful career in Norway, where he was a senior executive and shareholder of companies associated with the oil industry, to take charge of EYEP. But almost none of the timetables announced by the government, both for research into natural gas or oil, and for offshore wind farms, seem to be observed. And with what we learn is happening in Crete and the new provocative energy of the Turks on the occasion of the cable laying, probably Mars Stephatos is not in any hurry! Where to start drilling, he’ll think when Ankara’s lurking. On the other hand, the Turks would not easily mess with ExxonMobil or Chevron if the American giants decided to proceed to research drilling. Offshore wind is another case. There are currently no foreign players, while competitions are stalling. By the time they’re done, Mars Stephatus may have returned to Norway! In the retail trade – said – will come the next major sectoral collective agreement The retail trade is estimated by competent executives of the financial staff that it could be the next branch in which a sectoral collective contract with wages above the minimum wage could be signed. It is recalled that Greece, through the 2024 Kerameos Act, has undertaken to increase the rate of trade union coverage to 80% of workers. It is currently at 20% and an average in the EU is 50%. Therefore, the same sources in the column state that Greece’s first intermediate objective could be 50%. In order to reach such a percentage, sectoral contracts should be signed, involving broad masses of workers. “We are close to signing a Collective Labour Convention in the retail trade,” the same sources say. Over 300,000 workers are employed in this sector. If a Collective Convention was signed, the coverage rate would increase immediately by 10% – 15%. One plus one new reforms in the EPCA are… how many? A single Regulation (non-retirement) benefits (e.g. sickness benefit) may also be set aside for the insured persons of the EFFA. This reform has been pending since 2017, that is, it counts eight years late, but in the Ministry of Labour an initial plan of changes is ready. In fact, these changes, as the column is informed, would benefit the government’s main target group, namely the “medium class”, as they would give them additional insurance cover. However, some other social groups, namely those insured in the former ‘noble’ funds, e.g. former ECOs, banks, would lose part of the large amount of their benefits, which – obviously – would have a political cost to the government. And while legislative intervention was taking place on the non-retirement benefits of the EPKA, the Ministry of Labour set up a committee to establish uniform rules – and – on supplementary pensions, as the column is informed. This intervention is considered by competent officials to be absolutely necessary, as it would lead to an even greater acceleration in the issuance of supplementary pensions. However, the same executives say that “two watermelons do not fit in the same armpit” and one of them may… fall or else delay even further the reform of non-retirement benefits (but also that for auxiliary ones). Something must change in the management of debts in the funds (and not only) Staying in the field of social security, but moving to the part of businessmen’s debts to it, the column feels obliged – for anyone who did not attend our news story last weekend https://www.newsit.gr/oikonomia/Ziteitai-plan-B-gia-tous-ofeiletes-ton-asfalistikon-tameion/4297674/ to reinstate the question of plan search B for debts to insurance funds or, in other words, inoculated intervention exceeding (without abolishing) the existing dipole with which debtors are treated and which is heard in the phrases ‘horizontal regulation (e.g. 24 installments etc.) or seizure’. In other words, a more targeted framework is sought (and not horizontal as is the case with permanent open or exceptional arrangements) but also wider than the ‘executive mechanism’, which concerns those who have been “ruled”. Similar framework for flexible and realistic debt management banks have successfully used the “cheese” of the premium haircut, having increased their revenues, from economically active debtors. Market executives with whom the column came into contact wonder why the same model could not be applied to the debtors of the funds, not only the tax. To the question, who will carry out such a work, the answer given by the same sources is simple: Those who already know how to do it…