#rbnews weekly bulletin 22-28 June 2013

The text companion to this week's #rbnews international show is now online. You can read it after the jump.

Guest post - Greece: the battle for ERT and the difficult but necessary path from protest to political change

By Panagiotis Sotiris [1]

After the June 2012 election in Greece one of the main preoccupations of both the Greek government and the Troika (EU-IMF-ECB) representatives was to present an image of a strong government that would stand firm and would not succumb the pressure coming from a society in despair. For some time this tactic seemed to work, aided by the inability of mass protests to produce concrete positive results and the choice of the SYRIZA leadership to opt for a “ripe fruit” strategy regarding governmental power. However the ongoing struggle over the fate of Greek Public Television and Radio (ERT) has put an end to this fantasy of a strong government in a position to smoothly pass socially devastating legislation.

In the struggle for ERT, for the first time we have had a mass movement that led to a significant political rupture. The combination of  a defiant stance from ERT employees who decided to occupy the premises and continue broadcasting, even in the form of web TV, creating a tangible example of the quality of public service that self-management can bring, with a broader social and political mobilization in support of ERT and in opposition to the authoritarian turn of the Samaras government that led to the mass presence outside ERT headquarters and local stations, intensified a deeper governmental crisis that had its roots in the social and economic crisis and the inability for the Greek government to offer an exit from the vicious circle of recession, austerity and unemployment. Contrary to the prevailing myth, even within the forces of the Left, that people are disappointed and that it would be difficult to urge them to go back in the streets, the struggle over ERT brought forward the potential for solidarity, mass mobilization and support of an important struggle. The struggle over ERT became the metonymy for all forms of aggression against not only social rights, but also against democracy per se. The black screens became the symbol of the aggressive, undemocratic character of both contemporary neoliberalism and Troika supervision that dictate political measures. This can explain the extent and the duration of the protests about ERT.

#rbnews weekly bulletin 15-21 June 2013

The text companion to this week's #rbnews international show is now online. You can read it after the jump.

#rbnews international show 22 June 2013: Happy birthday Mr. Prime Minister

On the occasion of the first anniversary of the formation of the coalition government in June 2012 (and of the day when it lost one of its three member parties), we discussed its achievements (or lack thereof) over the past year with @tsimitakis and @YiannisBab.

You can listen to the podcast, as usual, after the jump.

More truths and lies about ERT: was government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou an ERT employee?

In the statement he delivered in the evening of Tuesday 11 June on behalf of the government, when the shutdown of Greece's public broadcaster ERT was officially announced, spokesman Simos Kedikoglou justified the government's decision by saying, among other things: "The Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, ERT, is a typical case of unique opacity and incredible waste of public money (...) It is governed by opacity in the sector of contract management."

The irony of this statement was not lost on ERT staff, who were prompt to note that Simos Kedikoglou was himself recruited as an ERT journalist in 1995, at a time when his father, Vasilis Kedikoglou, was a member of parliament with then-governing party PASOK. This was also denounced by SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, in response to whom Kedikoglou's office published a statement, that was reported by To Ethnos newspaper on 14 June:

As noted by his collaborators, Mr. Kedikoglou was never appointed at ERT. Quite the opposite, he worked at ERT on a fixed-term contract, "and his first job was a night shift from midnight to 6 am during the first Gulf War."
"ERT was then looking for journalists who speak foreign languages, who were uncommon at the time, for the needs of its round-the-clock coverage, and Mr. Kedikoglou speaks fluent English, French and Russian." (...) [1]

In an article published today on tvxs.gr, former ERT news director Giorgos Kogiannis chose to expose Mr. Kedikoglou by releasing the document that ratified Mr. Kedikoglou's recruitment by ERT on an open-ended contract - meaning that Mr. Kedikoglou was recruited by ERT as, essentially, a civil servant with tenure.

Kogiannis further notes that Kedikoglou's recruitment came at a time when hundreds of ERT employees were on two-month contracts and were being paid with delays of several months. By the time a decree by then-Minister of Interior Prokopis Pavlopoulos gave permanent positions to temporary workers in the civil service in 2006, some journalists had been on short-term contracts for 25 years (implying, also, that these journalists constantly risked being fired if they didn't toe the government line). In 1995, no open-ended positions were available in the Greek civil service at large, meaning that Kedikoglou's position was created specifically for him. Kedikoglou was subsequently sponsored by ERT to attend training with CNN, before finally joining a talk show on private TV station MEGA.

[1] Editor's note CORRECTED: This post initially mistranslated the Greek expression "γερμανικό νούμερο" as "German-language coverage" It actually means night shift. 

<<< Previous post in this series: Truths and lies about ERT: A former news director answers the Prime Minister's claims

Next post in this series: Greece: the battle for ERT and the difficult but necessary path from protest to political change >>>

Truths and lies about ERT: A former news director answers the Prime Minister's claims

On 16 June, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras wrote a long opinion piece for the Sunday edition of newspaper Kathimerini (which, incidentally, was published despite the fact that all media were officially on strike) to justify his decision to shut down Greece's public broadcaster ERT. Former ERT news director Giorgos Kogiannis wrote in turn an answer to the Prime Minister on the newly established ERT workers' blog, in which he points out several contradictions between Samaras's claims and some actual facts and emphasizes that Samaras's criticism of ERT should apply, first and foremost, to his own choices and those of his entourage. We are summarizing this indirect dialogue below.

The Council of State ruling about ERT: what on earth does it mean?

Last night the Council of State issued a ruling which was hailed as overturning common ministerial decision  OIK 02/11.06.2013 that shut down with immediate effect Greece's public broadcaster ERT, leaving TV watchers in front of a black screen. The Council of State specifically orders:

1. That enforcement of the common ministerial decision is suspended "exclusively with regard to those items pertaining to a) the interruption of transmissions of radio and television signals and of operations of websites owned by ERT, and b) the fact that ERT frequencies should remain inactive (article 2, § 2, item b of the common ministerial decision)."

2. That competent ministers [i.e. the Minister of Finance and the Minister of State responsible for media affairs] should take "necessary organizational measures for the resumption of radio and television signal transmissions and the operation of websites owned by a public broadcaster until the establishment of a new agency which will serve the public interest, as stipulated in article 1 § 2 of the common ministerial decision."

But what does this mean in practice?

ERT shutdown - Round-up of developments 13 June 2013

Protests continued today across Greece to protest the government's abrupt decision in the evening of Tuesday 11 June to shut down public radio and television broadcaster ERT (see here and here). Several labour unions called for a general strike today, including the civil servants' union ADEDY, the General Confederation of Labour GSEE and communist-affiliated PAME. The media strike, which started yesterday for radio and television stations, extended today to newspapers. As a result all media except ERT and media re-transmitting ERT were on strike. A large demonstration took place in front of the ERT headquarters in the morning, while several other rallies and protests were held in other cities and towns across Greece and abroad (photo gallery below). The media strike in Greece will continue tomorrow, with journalists' unions calling upon all unions and citizens to support not only ERT with protecting the compound but also to ensure that media tycoons cannot whip up support or intimidate workers to break the strike in privately-owned media. The journalists' unions further call upon all internet-based media to embed the ERT broadcast in their websites.

The Lagarde list and the trial of Kostas Vaxevanis

By @Polyfimos, translated by @Pexlibanis and @anarresti

On  6 June 2013, former Greek economy czar George Papaconstantinou watched the plenary assembly of the Greek Parliament, which had already  impeached him for doctoring a document and engaging in misconduct, vote to expand charges against him to criminal breach of faith in the scandal of the altered list of 2062 Greek bank account holders in Switzerland, known as  the Lagarde list.

Four  days later, Kostas Vaxevanis, the journalist who was arrested and tried because he first published the names on the list on 27 October 2012, is, for the second time, sitting in the defendant's chair for the same court case, after the prosecution demanded a re-trial, because the court "did not give proper weight to the evidence material and considered it very poorly."

This comes after his first trial on 1 November 2012, which, as pointed out by Kostas Vaxevanis  in an open letter to European Commission President Jose Manuel  Barroso, was conducted ​​with such haste that "the original case file did not include a single element of evidence, not even the incriminating issue of the magazine. The charges were so hastily put together that they even forgot to put the official stamp of the prosecutor on the file."

Guest post: Exit from the Eurozone: the elephant in the room or why we cannot have socialism based upon EFSF recapitalisation

By Panagiotis Sotiris [1]

The report by Costas Lapavitsas and Heiner Flassbeck on the crisis of the Eurozone has been an important step in re-opening the euro debate within the European Left. The political significance of the report was made even more evident by the fact that it was published by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, and was endorsed by the leadership of Die Linke, especially after Oskar Lafontaine had also recently insisted on the need to consider the exit from the Eurozone as a potential solution for countries of the European South such as Greece. It follows the decision by AKEL the Cypriote left-wing party to propose Cyprus’ exit from the Eurozone, a proposition based upon scientific advice offered by amongst others Lapavitsas and Flassbeck.

The report itself is not a radical or Marxist manifesto. Although Lapavitsas has a strong Marxist background, the report is marked by Flassbeck’s much more Keynesian approach. Moreover, it is not a report with an a priori hostility towards monetary union or currency coordination for Europe, nor is it filled with anticapitalist references. On the contrary it seems to take the internationalization of trade and capital flows as granted. However, it is exactly this kind of critique from within aspects of the dominant economic paradigm that makes it even more interesting.

#rbnews weekly bulletin 18-24 May 2013

The text companion to this week's #rbnews international show is now online. You can read it after the jump.

Greek Helsinki Monitor: "Some people support freedom of speech... only for racist speech"

The Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) issued today a press release ahead of a trial tomorrow involving three of its officials as well as three officials from the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (CBJCG), who are accused of false accusations, witness perjury and libel by Kostas Plevris. Plevris is widely considered as the theoretician of neo-Nazism in Greece and was sued by the GHM and the CBJCG for his book Jews: The Whole Truth. A first tribunal had found him guilty of antisemitism  in 2007, but the sentence was overturned on appeal in 2009 in a decision that was ratified by the Supreme Court in 2010. The Supreme Court decision was deemed scandalous by many, given the contents of the book, which includes for instance chapters titled "The religion of the Jews: crime and misanthropy" or "The Holocaust: evidence of a lie" (you can listen to last Saturday's #rbnews international show on laws against racism in Greece for context on this matter).

#rbnews international show 18 May 2013: The letter, spirit and (lack of) enforcement of laws against racism in Greece

In this week's edition of the #rbnews international show, we continued our series about fascism and antifascism in Greece with an interview with @Chiguire79. @Chiguire79 is a lawyer and friend of radiobubble, and he explained to us the existing legal framework against racism and its shortcomings but also what we can expect from the new proposed bill against racism, which was finally brought to parliament yesterday.

You can read more about the proposed bill here. You can also find the rest of the shows in this series under the tag fascism and antifascism series.

And of course, you can listen to the podcast after the jump.

#rbnews international show 11 May 2013: Greece and the 2012 elections, one year on.

In this week's edition of the #rbnews international show, @tsimitakis and @IrateGreek interviewed Michalis Spourdalakis, professor of political science at the University of Athens and Chairman of the Hellenic Political Science Society. We took stock of the political situation of Greece on the anniversary of the elections of 6 May 2012, which was a political earthquake in which Greece's traditional bipartisan system collapsed, leading to the rise of alternative political forces, SYRIZA on the left and, most worryingly, Golden Dawn on the far-right.
You can listen to the podcast, as usual, after the jump.

6 May 2012 - 6 May 2013: one year from the Greek general elections of May 2012

By @galaxyarchis, translated from Greek by @anarresti, corrections by @IrateGreek

By Spyros Derveniotis
Translation: "Dirty immigrants, dying
where the Greeks eat!

Greece recently had two very important political anniversaries. More specifically, May 6th, 2013, marked three years since the adoption of the Memorandum which caused the greatest political rearrangements in the country's recent history, and one year since the 2012 general elections, when those dramatic changes were first expressed through the ballot box. Greek society is living in a period where political time is condensed to such a degree, that the changes occurring every month and every week can hardly be conceived by its collective consciousness. Since the May 2012 elections, which did not lead to the formation of a new government but to repeat elections a month later, the country's image and its political landscape kept changing at a rapid pace until today. In light of a greater tribute to the one year anniversary since last June's elections, when today's three-party coalition government came to power, we take a look at the facts and data which changed in this past year, starting from last May's elections.

Proposing second-rate citizenship: it's not only Golden Dawn

On 25 February 2013, the Hellenic Armed Forces General Chief of Staff Michalis Kostarakos caused considerable reaction on all sides of the political spectrum when he tweeted:

"The time has come to regulate by law the issue of genos for those enrolling in Military Academies. They should be Greek by genos."  

Urgent meeting in PASOK headquarters

Edit: alterthess.gr Translation: inflammatory_

In light of recent developments, Venizelos invited his close aides for a meeting to make final decisions of critical importance regarding the broader efforts to form a new government. A. Loverdos, M. Chrisochoidis, A. Diamantopoulou, K. Scandalidis, P. Efthimiou, M. Androulakis and F. Gennimata will join. 
The topics under discussion include everything raised by Samaras and Kouvelis (Democratic Left) to the Head of PASOK, who attempts to bring on board Kouvelis' argument against the aspect where Loverdos and Chrisochoidis would be appointed of ministerial posts they used to hold during previous government.
Everything shows though that PASOK members will join a coalition. 

LIVE BLOG on Greek elections, June 17

By @inflammatory_

01:50 Election Results in a nutshell 
Here's a recap of the day's main highlights

• Check here the latest official updates on election results from Ministry of Interior's webpage.
• As there is no outright winner securing 151 seats, leader of pro-bailout "New Democracy" A. Samaras, will receive a formal mandate from President Karolos Papoulias on Monday morning to form a coalition government. Some members estimate that might get back individual support from ex-comrades who switched to Independent Greeks thus putting its cohesiveness at risk.
• Although physical assaults on left-wing politicians and immigrants made headlines, it seems that neonazi Golden Dawn's voters are engaged with the party's rhetoric and practices.
• Communist Party KKE has hit a record low.
• A few who voted for right-wing anti-bailout Independent Greeks during last elections switched to Syriza and New Democracy, dropping down the party's rating.
• Although left-wing Syriza came second, the party managed to raise the percentage of the vote from 4,6% in 2009 to 27,1% in 2012. Syriza has rejected any coalition with a pro-bailout party.
• PASOK is keen to join forces with New Democracy, Syriza and Democratic Left with Venizelos apparently denying that Syriza's collaboration is a strong prerequisite. 

The pre-electoral commitments that shape the “electoral polarization” in this June’s elections.

By @galaxyarchis, translated by the #rbnews international team.

The shaping of the pre-electoral landscape concludes with the final pitch of the leaders of the two parties which theoretically and practically, have a claim to power on June 18. Under the circumstances, PASOK has to a large extent withdrawn from the battle for leadership and is reserving for itself –as expressed by the statements of its leader Evangelos Venizelos– a regulatory role. The same goes for the Democratic Left which has also stated its intention to participate in a coalition government.

The rupture between Samaras (leader of conservative New Democracy) and Tsipras (the leader of left wing SYRIZA) reached a climax with the presentation of their pre-electoral commitments on Thursday and Friday respectively, thus shaping a new polarization around the dilemmas which they put forward clearly: “Memorandum or Drachma” and “Memorandum or Syriza.”

What follows is a detailed juxtaposition, on a point by point basis, of these commitments.

A French translation is available on Okeanews. 

PASOK's downfall and the attempts to stay afloat

By @inflammatory_


Say hello to a new era where PASOK's ability to rule with a comfortable parliamentary advantage is over. With the repudiation of austerity policies at the ballot box, it saw its vote plummeting from 43.9% in the last elections to 13.2%. "PASOK is rotten" said its leader -Evangelos Venizelos- to his aides, highlighting the need for readjustment as many of those sustaining the party's state electoral clientèle -nurtured by favoritism, contracts, and subventions- seem to "abandon the ship". With perks cutbacks under the bailout agreements, high-profile members of major trade union bodies cut ties with the party, while others move around on the political spectrum, seeking shelter with hints of electoral success. 

Thanks to Simitis' embrace of neo-liberalism in the mid 90's and Papandreou's approval of austerity measures that kicked Greeks in the guts, PASOK abandoned certain clauses of its own charter and shifted to the right, setting voters deprived of a genuine "socialist" choice. Now Venizelos will have to use his soft media skills to reposition the party in the centre-left, a challenging task considering Syriza's rapid gains in popularity. Putting his six-point plan on the table, he strives to promote the idea of reviewing Greece’s loan agreement and come across as a potent force in politics that has taken stock of negotiations with international leaders over the last year. Although determined to start building the party's reputation from scratch and win back a part of the votes lost to Syriza, Democratic Left or apathy, the feasibility of the matter in hand within a few weeks time remains questionable.

Admittedly overshadowed and squeezed between New Democracy and Syriza, PASOK sees itself playing a secondary role for the first time in decays. To this end Venizelos puts the message of "unity efforts in view of country's troubles" ahead of rivalries. Since the hard-line attack on Tsipras somehow backfires on PASOK but works for New Democracy, Venizelos mellowed down the confrontational rhetoric against Syriza without keeping the divides aside though.