Cabinet reshuffle brings changes and new faces to the Ministry of Infrastructure & Transport

The Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Costas Karamanlis, who can now be considered one of the most “concrete” ministers of the Mitsotakis Government, is immovable in another reshuffle.

However, we have a big upgrade for the former General Secretary of Infrastructure, George Karagiannis, who is being promoted to Deputy Minister of Infrastructure. What is of great value in this is that it is a new position, which shows the diverse object in the field of construction with the need to establish a position under the minister so that the many different issues can be addressed.

For its part, the market regarding the new Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, speaks of a politician who works hard and is down to earth. The Ministry of Infrastructure in the near future will have to deal with the constantly expanding object and the addition of many new projects with all that entails in terms of planning and preparation.

The weight will continue to fall on PPPs as projects over 4 billion euros are in various stages and will have to run in order to be implemented. George Karagiannis will also be in charge of planning the infrastructure projects of the next decade, which includes extensive railway and Metro projects.

Karamanlis is “immovable”

The stay of Costas Karamanlis did not surprise anyone as his course in these two years at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport is on the rise. Market sources state that in 2019 the portfolio of new projects and the maturity of others was particularly low and that in these two years, many important projects came to the surface. During this time Karamanlis managed to contract the project for line 4, a heavy bond that many considered impossible to break, he successfully completed and contracted the northern part of the E65 and matured the tender for BOAK.

At the same time, the duo Caramanli-Karagianni auctioned a series of PPPs -due to the lack of funds in the NSRF- in building projects, the flyover of the Thessaloniki Ring, the Havria Dam, etc. In addition, a number of flood defenses were carried out, mainly in Attica, about 450 million euros were given for the flood protection of the highways and now the flood defenses are in progress in Western Thessaly.

The bet for the Karamanlis ministries is the implementation of the ambitious railway project plan of 4 billion euros, the supply of new ecological city buses in Athens-Thessaloniki, the completion of the negotiation and implementation of Patras-Pyrgos, the completion of the Thessaloniki Metro project and contracting of VOAK.

The new Deputy Minister of Transport is Michalis Papadopoulos

However, we have a change of face with the new Deputy Minister of Transport, Michalis Papadopoulos. Mr. Papadopoulos, from June 25, 2013 to January 27, 2015, was Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks in the government of Antonis Samaras.

In 2000 he was elected MP for Kozani for the first time with the ND ballot and was re-elected in the elections of 2004, 2009, June 2012 and 2019. Mr. Papadopoulos takes the place of Giannis Kefalogiannis.

In his portfolio he will be called upon to deal with the difficult issues of everyday life with the coronavirus present in urban transport, the improvement of rail transport and the new situation that is taking shape in aviation.