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Greek Ex-PM's Don't Back Digital TV Licenses

Papandreou_KaramanlisA day before Greek riot police stormed the headquarters of the country’s former national broadcaster ERT to oust fired workers still occupying the premises and broadcasting pirate signals, the Parliament has given the okay for the country’s private stations to keep operating unlawfully until the government gets around to giving them licenses.
The bill got the vote of only 154 of the body’s 300 members, but not that of two former Premiers who are MP’s, former New Democracy Conservative chief Costas Karamanlis, who was absent, and former PASOK leader George Papandreou, who voted against allowing the stations to keep operating without a license although he allowed it while he was in power.
The vote means TV channels will be allowed to continue to broadcast digitally until the end of next year, by which time the government will have had to issue the proper licenses for such transmissions unless it decides to let them keep running anyway without the legal authorization. It’s common in Greece for powerful interests to do what they want with implicit government support.
Opposition parties, which voted against the bill, accused the government of trying to avoid a transparent licensing process and give existing channels permits through the back door to benefit special interests.

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