In a show of defiance against Greece’s conservative-led government, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) on Thursday put fired journalists at state public broadcaster ERT back on air.
The EBU said it had successfully linked a live 24-hour pirate broadcast produced by fired ERT journalists to satellite subscribers in Greece, Europe, Asia and Oceania.
“Until this afternoon, ERT’s output was only available via a live stream on the EBU website, redirected from ERT’s signal, which was carried back to EBU headquarters in Geneva,” the EBU said on its Web site.
“But EBU engineers have implemented a workaround to retransmit ERT’s signal via the EBU’s Athens earth station,” it said, hours before its president, Jean-Claude Philippot was scheduled to Athens to meet with the Greek Prime Minister on Friday.
The move was a clear challenge to Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who decided to shut down the public broadcaster on Tuesday as part of the country’s austerity programme, accusing it of “extravagant spending and lack of transparency.” The government has since threatened to sue anyone who retransmitted broadcasts by the laid-off journalists.
Labour stoppages spread across Greece on Thursday, as workers in a variety of fields walked off the job to show solidarity with the more than 2,500 journalists facing unemployment.
Several thousand protesters, many holding banners, demonstrated outside ERT’s offices, where fired workers have been occupying the building for three days, continuing live streaming broadcasts in an act of defiance against the government.
Public transport and state services faced disruption as labour unions launched a 24—hour strike in a show of support.
International flights were disrupted for two hours in the afternoon, after air traffic controllers walked off the job. In a similar note, a five-hour walkout by staff at the Civil Aviation Authority, beginning at noon, grounded all domestic flights.
Bus and train services stopped working, while the Athens metro operated on a reduced service.
The strike, the third to be called by labour unions this year, shut down tax offices and schools and left hospitals operating with emergency staff.
In a show of support, private television, radio and newspaper journalists also continued an open-ended strike on Thursday, causing a news blackout across the country.
“The move by Samaras is seen as radical, but serves as a clear message that he will hit at any group, including powerful journalists, to push through necessary reforms,” said leading commentator Giorgos Delastik from Ethnos newspaper.
“So you can imagine, if the journalists are being taken down by the government, then no other working group will survive the imminent reforms.” The Government said a new public broadcaster would be launched before the end of the summer, with fewer than 1,200 workers to be hired by the new company.
The decision to close ERT, which was not backed by the Prime Minister’s two coalition partners — the Socialist PASOK and Democratic Left party — is seen as the biggest crisis facing the government since it was formed a year ago.
Both PASOK and the Democratic Left have submitted legislation to parliament to cancel ERT’s closure. A meeting is scheduled to take place between all three party coalition leaders late on Monday.
Unless a compromise is found, there is a risk of the government breaking up and new elections being called, a procedure which would place an ongoing budget austerity process at risk, endangering future international bailout payments.
Greece has carried out a series of austerity measures, including tax hikes and wage and pension cuts, since it received its first tranche of emergency aid from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Athens is now under increasing pressure to fire thousands of civil servants as part of its commitments to bailout lenders.
The International Press Association based in Brussels called on the European Union institutions to demand an immediate reversal of the decision while the EBU has written in protest to European Commission President Joe Manuel Barroso and Samaras.
“Yesterday the government cut off our phone lines, which ended up taking down the signal, but we have found other ways of getting it back up,” said an ERT radio journalist.