Greece’s Coalition Government Teeters Over Broadcaster Impasse

By Marcus Bensasson, Tom Stoukas & Paul Tugwell - Jun 21, 2013 3:28 AM GMT+0300

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras may be set to lose a coalition partner over his closure of the country’s state broadcaster ERT, heightening concern about his government’s stability.

A one-hour meeting late yesterday between Samaras, Pasok party leader Evangelos Venizelos and Democratic Left’s Fotis Kouvelis failed to break a deadlock over ERT, closed June 11 without the coalition partners’ consent. Kouvelis insisted on the broadcaster reopening with all of ERT’s 2,600 employees, while Venizelos accepted a proposal by Samaras for fewer workers, according to statements by the three leaders after the meeting.

“Today we close one year of government and three years remain -- which we should complete for the sake of the Greek people,” Samaras said in an address to the nation on Mega TV. “Kouvelis wants us to return to a shameful status quo with excess workers where nothing is changed and where there’s no hope that one day something will change at ERT.”

The departure of Democratic Left and its 14 lawmakers from the government would leave Samaras relying on Pasok’s 28 seats for a majority of three in the 300-seat legislature. Samaras needs to be able to convince the euro area and International Monetary Fund that he has broad support needed to pass the structural reforms and budget cuts that are a condition of the country’s 240 billion euros ($317 billion) of bailout loans.

Lawmaker Meeting

Kouvelis will meet with his lawmakers this morning in Athens to decide whether to withdraw support for Samaras’s government, Skai TV reported without saying how it got the information. In statements after yesterday’s meeting, Kouvelis condemned Samaras for failing to comply with a supreme court ruling for ERT to resume broadcasting until a new entity replaces it.

“It’s not a political crisis, it’s turbulence,” Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras told reporters in Luxembourg last night after a meeting of euro-area finance ministers. “It’ll pass.”

Venizelos said the government must re-establish the basis of its cooperation without “surprises” and unilateral actions. While Venizelos has criticized Samaras’s actions over ERT, he reiterated last night that the country should avoid early elections and that the government should see out the remainder of its term.

Samaras shut down ERT even as his coalition partners objected, saying he will replace it with a “modern” operation employing fewer people. The move was necessary to allow Greece to meet lender targets for public-sector job cuts, he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Marcus Bensasson in Athens at mbensasson@bloomberg.net; Tom Stoukas in Athens at astoukas@bloomberg.net; Paul Tugwell in Athens at ptugwell1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net; Andrew Rummer at arummer@bloomberg.net; Jerrold Colten at jcolten@bloomberg.net