Journalists from Greece’s national broadcaster refuse to leave the office and continue to stream over the internet in defiance of Tuesday’s dramatic axing. Amid sharp criticism, the Greek government said it will create a new “modern broadcasting service.”
The decision to shut down the Hellenic Broadcasting Corp (ERT)
and fire its 2,500 staff caused uproar in the country and brought
criticism from abroad. Athens said the broadcaster had to be
scrapped as part of the major spending cuts, which is the
requirement for receiving bailout money from international
creditors.
The planned new broadcaster will be called NERIT, the government
announced on Wednesday. It will be a state-owned,
independently-managed public company funded through a special
fee. While no official date for the new broadcaster’s launch was
officially stated, sources indicated that it may happen sometime
in August. NERIT is to have 1,200 employees when it opens,
according to the German magazine Focus.
Athens cited lack of transparency, overstaffing and waste of
public money as its justification for their condemning ERT.
“The Greek people are paying for ERT, which has three times,
even eight times, as much staff as it needs,” government
spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said. “It has ample assets,
which have remained unused.” He also criticized ERT
over “benefits for its workers and spending huge amounts
on external productions.”
The sudden closure of ERT on Tuesday, which was the first-ever
shut-down of a national broadcaster by its government in Europe
since World War II, caused uproar in the country and criticism
from foreign organizations.
In a gesture of solidarity two major Greek labor unions — GSEE
and ADEDY announced a 24-hour strike for Thursday.
“We want to show our solidarity to the state TV workers and
protest against these unacceptable public sector reforms that the
lenders have demanded,” the general secretary of public
sector union ADEDY, Ilias Iliopoulos told Reuters on Wednesday.
The journalists’ union ESIEA earlier announced a strike too to
support colleagues from the closed channel. ERT staff members
refused to leave the broadcaster’s building north of Athens and
have continued TV broadcasting over the internet,
long after the radio signal was shut down.
Meanwhile the European Commission, which is part of the “troika”
of investors overseeing Greek austerity measures, distanced
itself from the controversy.
“The Commission has not sought the closure of ERT, but nor
does the Commission question the Greek government’s mandate to
manage the public sector,” European Economic and Monetary
Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told the European Parliament on
Wednesday.
“The decision of the Greek authorities should be seen in the
context of the major and necessary efforts that the authorities
are taking to modernize the Greek economy. Those include
improving its efficiency and effectiveness of the public
sector,” Rehn said in a statement to deputies.
Greece is undergoing its sixth year of economic recession,
suffering from high unemployment, shrinking public spending and
regular mass protest of the disgruntled citizens.
The International Monetary Fund, also part of the ‘troika’,
acknowledged in a report this month that it made ‘notable
failures’ in its handling of the Greek bailout. The international
body said it had underestimated how deeply austerity measures
imposed on Greece would hurt the country.
This article originally appeared on: RT