Before the accident, EU Chief Prosecutor Laura K\u00f6vesi had already\u00a0opened an investigation<\/a> into a 2014 contract for signalling and remote-control upgrades on the Athens\u2013Thessaloniki\u2013Promachona railway. The EU-funded modernisation, long delayed, would likely have prevented the collision, K\u00f6vesi has said<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the EU funds for this contract had been used properly, my child would be alive today,\u201d echoed Karystianou.<\/p>\n Thousands of Greeks gathered in front of the EU Parliament last February to protest Article\u202f86 \u2013 Photo source: Euractiv<\/p>\n Give that only the Greek parliament can authorise the prosecution of ministers, and the governing majority routinely blocks such requests, Karystianou argued that K\u00f6vesi should apply the principle of primacy of EU law and the EPPO Regulation (2017\/1939)<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cShe has all the legal tools at her disposal \u2013 but she is not using them. This undermines the trust of millions of citizens seeking justice, who cannot tolerate politicians deciding for themselves whether they are guilty or innocent,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n The immunity debate has also resurfaced\u00a0amid the recent\u00a0EU farm scandal<\/a>, when the EPPO sought to prosecute two Greek ministers, and Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis insisted<\/a> that the governing majority alone determines whether ministers can be investigated.<\/p>\n A \u2018black hole\u2019 for Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n At an event in Brussels on Tuesday, Greek leftist MEP Nikolas Farantouris warned that provision 86 in the Greek Constitution acts as a \u201cshield of impunity\u201d for political figures.<\/p>\n A professor of EU law, Farantouris, presented on Tuesday a legal opinion asserting that EU law must prevail over conflicting national provisions, including constitutional clauses.<\/p>\n \u201cConstitutional provisions must be interpreted in the light of the Union legal order and must not run counter to it or render it ineffective,\u201d he told Euractiv. Article 86 of the Greek constitution, he argued, creates a \u201cblack hole\u201d in the EU\u2019s rule-of-law architecture.<\/p>\n According to Farantouris, the EU and the EPPO should bypass the article and prosecute the responsible politicians. Otherwise, even the last hope in the European institutions will be lost, creating the \u201cperfect fertiliser for Euroscepticism.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/fffggg-800x473.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n