[MGSA-L] Fwd: Greek national broadcaster shut down by government in a 1.5 page decision

Aristides Vagelatos vagelat at cti.gr
Fri Jun 14 01:21:25 PDT 2013


Dear friend

It is not fair to put together in the same basket ERT and the Municipality (no matter which).

For ERT we pay (every household) 38,88€ per year, and for each bi-monthly bill it is estimated

as: 50,88*60(days)/365 = ~ 8€

I do not know if this is high cost or not.

I DO know that I am missing ERT, especially the radio part of it.

Regards

A.V.

 

From: mgsa-l-bounces at uci.edu [mailto:mgsa-l-bounces at uci.edu] On Behalf Of Aristide Caratzas
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2013 12:14 AM
To: MGSA List
Subject: Re: [MGSA-L] Fwd: Greek national broadcaster shut down by government in a 1.5 page decision

 

Relating to the shutting down of ERT, it will be enlightening to learn what is the "huge violation of democratic procedures;" as for the "right of the citizens of an EU to have access to free [sic], non-commercial broadcasting of news" . . . etc., I would like to bring up a fact that soundly contradicts this assertion. 

 

It happens that I just received my DEH (power company) bi-monthly bill a few days ago. That bill includes a tax item labeled "Demos kai ERT" (="Municipality and ERT"), but does not specify what percentage of this tax goes to each of the two items. In my case, for the last two months that tax item is 50 euros (about$65) for my home bill and 200 euros (about $260) for that of my office, a total of 250 euros (±$325). If this last number is projected on an annual basis, then the Athens municipality and ERT cost me something like 1,500 euros (±$1,950). In order to have a sense of how much "free, non-commercial broadcasting" cost the Greek taxpayer, the amount of this "Demos kai ERT" item should be multiplied by the hundreds of thousands of households forced to pay this tax. In other words ERT was NOT free, in fact it was quite expensive.  A look into the largest component of its budget helps clarify why the Greek households paid this item.

 

Out of ERT's total annual budget of 2012 was about 300 million euros (±$390 million), the amount that went to salaries in various forms was about 140 million euros (±$185 million). To try to understand where this enormous figure was channeled, one needs to note that ERT employed about 2,650 people,  the top management of which included scores of political appointees (members of endogamous political networks, mostly of the leftist inclination), dozens of whom made salaries between 60,000-324,000 euros per annum ($80,000-420,000), often only for a few hours of work per week. To paraphrase Mel Brooks, it's good (and profitable) to be "progressive" . . . [ for a listing of dozens of the names of ERT employees and their salaries, see http://infognomonpolitics.blogspot.gr/2009/12/blog-post_31.html#.UboneOtQ8qQ ]

 

The facts above are not to diminish either the history of ERT or quality of some of the broadcast and other activities of this institution over the decades. Indeed ERT must have an enormous amount of accumulated assets in terms of intellectual and creative properties, which belong to it — I mention this because one of the stories going around in Athens is that many of those who "worked" for this entity plan to claim as their (private) property works for which they were paid (in legal terms, that were "made for hire"), the rights for which accrue to ERT. 

 

Indeed the government, as it cleans the Augean Stables of accumulated corruption and reorganizes this entity, had better be alert to the possibility, and be ready to act decisively if attempts are made to plunder assets of this institution, which rightfully where paid for by the Greek taxpayer and should accrue to the successor entity.

 

Aristide Caratzas

 

 

On Jun 12, 2013, at 7:01 AM, Neni Panourgia wrote:





FYI

np/

Dear good friends, 


I apologize for the late time and the 'collective' dispatch of my message, but this is a real political unrgency. 

As you probably know, earlier today the Samaras coalition government of Greece in an unprecedented move decided without any prior negotiation the closure of the National Broadcaster, ERT, and all its departments including news agencies, TV, radio, archives, digital collections, orchestras, etc., and to fire all workers.

This was implemented through a 1,5 page ministerial decision (Ypoyrgiki Apofasi) signed today by Simos Kedikoglou, Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister(??) and Yiannis Stournaras, Minister of Finance, but not approved by the Parliament.
http://news.in.gr/files/1/2013/06/11/ERTFEK.pdf (only available in Greek)

Signage was cut down (with police escort) at 11.00 pm, while ERT was broadcasting images from the courtyard of its main building, where thousands of citizens had gathered to protest peacefully against the decision. 
Shortly afterwards, the webpage www.ert.gr <http://www.ert.gr/>  was blocked - arguably the first time access to internet had been officially interrupted in Greece.

This is the culmination of an increasingly authoritarian policy, by an administration which at the same time denies to explicitly denounce racism and to bring a new anti-racist legislation to the Parliament, ignoring recommendations by the Commissioner of the EU for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/05/12/ignoring-eu-greece-wont-ban-golden-dawn/

No surprise, the racist party Golden Dawn (MPs of which have formally denied the Holocaust in Parliament speeches) has fully supported the governmental decision on ERT...
http://www.newsit.gr/default.php?pname=Article <http://www.newsit.gr/default.php?pname=Article&art_id=214795&catid=12> &art_id=214795&catid=12


The reaction by Greek citizens is enormous and contained. Since ERT does not exist anymore and private broadcasters prefer to play movies, you can only see online action here
http://www.zougla.gr/Controls/livecamera2/article/flash-camera-4 (again in Greek)

It is absolutely necessary that this huge violation of democratic procedures and of the elementary right of the citizens of an EU state to have access to free, non-commercial broadcasting of news through a public institution be strongly condemned by active, influential academics worldwide.

No economic conditions can justify the curtailing of democratic rights and institutions.   

 

We rely on all our friends overseas to make this case as strong as possible. 



 

 

 

 

_______________________________________________
List-Info: https://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/mgsa-l

 

Aristide D. Caratzas

Telephone: 30-697-228-5442

acaratzas at gmail.com

 

 





 

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