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Greek Coalition ERT Talks Break Off

arxigi_SamarasA 3 1/2-hour showdown between Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and his coalition partners late on June 19 failed to reach an agreement on the court-ordered reopening of the national broadcaster ERT that the government summarily shut down on June 11, and talks will be resumed the night of June 20, leaving the fate of the administration in suspense.
PASOK Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos and Democratic Left (DIMAR) chief Fotis Kouvelis, whose marginal parties provide Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative leader the votes he needs to govern, said no consensus was reached and the talks broke off. Samaras refused to speak after the meeting.
Hanging in the balance are the 2,656 ERT workers who were fired by Samaras as he attempted to meet targets set by international lenders – agreed to by Kouvelis and Venizelos – to shed 2,500 jobs by the end of the summer and 15,000 more in 2014 for rescue loans to be continued.
The country’s highest court, the Council of State, on June 17 ruled that Samaras could proceed with restructuring ERT into a slimmed-down entity to be called NERIT and to begin operation the end of the summer with only 1000-1200 workers from the current staff, but that he was wrong to turn off the signal and ordered it restored. He ignored the order and ERT’s screens have remained dark.
Earlier media reports claimed thats Samaras had prepared a new compromising proposal to temporarily hire up to 1,200 ERT employees to run the station until the new broadcaster is created after his offer of only a skeleton staff to run news programs was rejected by his partners. Kouvelis and Venizelos said they want every worker rehired but offered no solution how to reach the target of cutting 2,500 jobs this summer as demanded by the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB).

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