It took a little more than an hour and a half before the leftist Greek government took back an abruptly submitted draft amendment giving nationwide broadcasters, who failed to win one of four national television licenses, only five days to cease transmissions.
By D. Hatzinikolas
It took a little more than an hour and a half before the leftist Greek government took back an abruptly submitted draft amendment giving nationwide broadcasters, who failed to win one of four national television licenses, only five days to cease transmissions.
An announcement by relevant minister Nikos Pappas, which came after midnight, said the controversial amendment would be withdrawn. A prescribed deadline was to have commenced from the publication of a relevant ministerial decision citing the four final broadcasters with licenses.
According to reports, Parliament President Nikos Voutsis, himself a top lawmaker hailing from the ruling SYRIZA party, warned that any legislative change should come after a most recent initiative by Parliament to appoint a new board for the independent broadcast authority.
In a draft amendment submitted late on Friday evening by Pappas’ office, heavy fines and penalties were foreseen in case of non-compliance, and after the publication, in the government gazette, of the four companies that successfully bid for licenses.
The current terrestrial digital platform hosting Greece’s free-to-air broadcasters, Digea, a consortium of seven television stations, one of whom is defunct, also faced a revocation of its license if continued to transmit unlicensed broadcasters' signals, under the draft amendment.
The Tsipras government assumed jurisdiction over broadcast licenses by passing a controversial law with its 153-deputy majority, which bypasses the independent authority that previously regulated the sector. It then commissioned a single study from an institute at an Italian university (Florence) that recommended just four broadcast licenses as sufficient for the Greek market. Afterwards, the government held a closed-door, nearly three-day long electronic auction, which awarded licenses to the highest bidder.
Pappas, in an early morning statement, appeared to back-pedal from his previously unbending position on the matter, saying a postponement would serve to “exhaust all margins for consensus”.