Coalition government partners Evangelos Venizelos (PASOK and Fotis Kouvelis (Democratic Left) openly invited prime minister Antonis Samaras to discuss the restructure of ERT on the condition that the public broadcaster remains open.
Fotis Kouvelis:
- No doubt ERT needs restructuring but with ERT remaining open. It’s unacceptable for ERT to be closed.
- Coordination needed among 3 parties.
- The coalition government’s “picture” is unclear.
- I invite the prime minister for a 3-party meeting to address the problems.
Evangelos Venizelos:
- The three parties have made huge effort so far. We can continue if we are honest and institutionally equality.
- We invite Mr Samaras for a meeting of the 3-party leaders to discuss responsibly how this situation can be handled.
- There is no Greek who wants disruption of country’s course.
- We want that ERT restructure is approved through a Parliament voting.
It looks as if both Venizelos and Kouvelis decided to keep a compromising attitude to save the coalition government, however they do not hide their discomfort about Samaras taking alone important government decisions.
Kouvelis and Venizelos met on Wednesday afternoon on the occasion that Samaras shut down public broadcaster ERT overnight.
Before the meeting that lasted 90 minutes, both PASOK and DemLeft had signaled that they won’t support Samaras shutdown and were apparently preparing a draft bill to annul the relevant decision – most probably with the help of the majority of opposition parties.
