Brussels, 03/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - During the plenary debate on 3 July, not one of the MEPs at the European Parliament disputed the need to re-establish broadcasting by ERT as soon as possible or the necessity of improving how the Greek public service broadcaster operates and how it is funded. Nonetheless, with the exception of one or two MEPs (particularly Frank Engel from Luxembourg), EPP representatives provided rather limp criticism of the abrupt closing down of ERT and defended Samaras' determination, despite this “clumsy” decision, to seek to reform an institution that was rife with nepotism and hugely wasteful. According to the EPP, there is no problem with democracy in Greece because ERT will be reborn from the ashes, stronger and healthier. This is not at all the position of S&D Group, whose MEPs made the most virulent declarations in this debate. They described the decision of the Greek government to close down the public broadcasting station as “inadmissible”, “unacceptable”, “undemocratic” and “anti-constitutional”.
Several ALDE MEPs, such as Theodoros Skylakakis (Greece) and Hannu Takkula (Finland) also denounced fraudulent practices identified at ERT and insisted on the need to reform the public broadcasting institution. The Greens/EFA said through Nikos Chrysogelos (Greece), Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Germany), however, that it was dangerous and hypocritical to seek to justify the decision made by the Samaras government. Speaking on behalf of the ECR, Tomasz Piotr Poreba (Poland) declared that denying citizens public television was quite simply unacceptable because it undermined public freedoms. The GUE/NGL said that private television channels would be the first to benefit from the undermining of the public broadcasting station. Through Nikolaos Chountis (Greece), it denounced the restrictions on civil liberties. The ELD, in the words of Nikolaos Salavrakos (Greece), said that the “ERT” affair was symptomatic of the inefficiency of the austerity policies imposed by the European Union troika. Finally, speaking on behalf of the Non-Attached, Ewald Stadler caused a bit of a commotion by claiming that, if such a closure had taken place in Hungary, everything would have gone up in flames but because this action involved Greece and a decision made by the troika, the Commission had not intervened. The troika was denounced by many MEPs for exerting pressure on the Greek authorities to clean up the public sector and the Commission was singled out for its silence and lack of response. At the end of the debates, the position of the Commission had not changed in the slightest. Its vice president, Maros Sefkovic, in charge of institutional affairs, stated that “this debate demonstrates to what extent the issue is both complex and sensitive. I would like to emphasise once again that the Commission did not request this closure”. According to Sefkovic, the reforms demanded in Greece are beginning to bear fruit and he concluded that “the conditions are taking shape for a return to better prospects… the situation is much better than twelve months ago”. (IL/transl.fl)