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The Plenary Session of the Συμβούλιο της Επικρατείας (the Council of State - Supreme Administrative Court of Greece) has declared unconstitutional two legislative provisions permitting all regional television stations which participated in the 1998 tender to function even after a “reasonable” time after this tender was published, confirming a decision of the 4th Section of the same Court (see IRIS 2008-1/19). According to decision 3578/2010 (issued on 1 November 2010), these provisions are contrary to the principle of the rule of law and the subsequent obligation of the State to vouch for the enforcement...

On 21 October 2010 the Second Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a preliminary ruling on request of the Greek Simvoulio tis Epikratias (Council of State). The preliminary question was whether penalties imposed on shareholders of public limited companies operating television stations are contrary to the principles of freedom of establishment and of the free movement of capital. The action was brought by Idrima Tipou AE, a shareholder of the public limited company Nea Tileorasi AE. Nea Tileorasi AE is the owner of the television station Star Channel. Idrima Tipou AE, Nea...

The Greek public service broadcaster, Ελληνική Ραδιοφωνία Τηλεόραση Α. Ε. (National Television and Radio, Inc. - ERT), has been facing a serious crisis over the past few months. The PSB’s three television stations (ET1, NET and ET3) and the five radio stations of national coverage, as well as a number of regional radio stations which also transmit via ERT’s systems, have not gathered the popularity enjoyed by corresponding European organisations, while criticism of its inordinately big number of employees has been intensifying, particularly during recent months, when ways of saving money in the...

The possibility of circumventing the legal provision (Article 8 para.1, Presidential Decree 77/2003) that forbids the transmission of images filmed by hidden means was established by a decision of the plenary session of the Συμβούλιο της Επικρατείας (Council of State). In Decision No. 1213/2010, Greece’s highest administrative court found that the televised transmission of images captured by hidden means constitutes a limitation on the constitutionally protected right of the portrayed person to their image, as a particular expression of the right to the respect for private life, and cannot, in...

On 4 May 2010 the Εθνικό Συμβούλιο Ραδιοτηλεόρασης (National Council for Radio and Television - ESR) issued a decision (Nr. 220/4.5.2010) condemning a television channel for the transmission of a show ridiculing the Greek Prime Minister. According to the decision, “satire is a way of making social criticism that nevertheless cannot extend to the derision and insult of (the Prime Minister)”. The minority opinion of the President of the ESR was different: the show depicted in a satirical way the pressure applied by the European Union Commissioner on the Prime Minister to undertake a series of painful...