Greece

[GR] Parliament Adopts Law to Establish New Public Service Broadcaster

IRIS 2013-9:1/20

Alexandros Economou

National Council for Radio and Television

On 19 July 2013, Act no. 4173 on New Greek Radio, Internet and Television was adopted by the Greek Parliament. The act establishes a new public service broadcaster to replace the former public service broadcaster ERT, which was shut down by the government on 11 June 2013 (see IRIS 2013-6/24). This law is very similar to the one drafted one year ago by a special committee of experts presided over by N. Alivizatos, professor of Constitutional Law in the Athens Faculty of Law (see IRIS 2012-5/25).

A Supervisory Council has been established to ensure that the new public service broadcaster is independent of the Government. The main tasks of this Council are: to set up a five-year strategic operating plan for the broadcaster; to deliver a favourable opinion on the budget; to promote sound corporate governance and to make the final decision with regard to the selection of the CEO and the members of Board.

Both members of the Supervisory Council and those of the Board are selected by a special selection committee comprised of private or public companies or organisations with international experience in executive staff selection. This selection committee must publish open calls for positions and, concerning the Supervisory Council, draw up a list of the ten candidates who obtain the highest scores. This list must then be submitted to the Minister responsible for Public Broadcasting, who will make the final selection of the seven members of the Supervisory Council. As far as members of the Board are concerned, separate procedures for the selection of CEO members and for the four members of the Board are set out in the legislation. The Supervisory Council will make the final selection with regard to the CEO and Board members based on the candidates who have obtained the highest score.

Meanwhile, the Greek Government and the special administrator are trying to set up the new public broadcaster, in accordance with the decision of the Council of State which has ordered that all measures, including the recruitment of the necessary staff, must be taken as quickly as possible. On 11 July 2013, a transitional channel called Greek Public Television began broadcasting programmes consisting mainly of documentaries. On 11 August 2013, the names of 557 candidates who have applied to work for the Greek Public Television network were announced.

However, the application of the new law and the implementation of governmental decisions have been hampered by the large number of journalists and technicians of the former ERT who continue to occupy the central buildings of the former public service broadcaster television and continue their own broadcasts via the internet.