Parliament: The positions of the rapporteurs of the parties on the press bill

“The government is proceeding with the establishment of transparency rules for press companies and the Mass Media in general,” said the ND rapporteur Savvas Chionidis, during the discussion of the bill regulating press issues, in the Public Administration, Public Order and Justice committee of the Parliament. As he also emphasized, the goal is transparency and the strengthening of publicity in the field of the printed and electronic press and the assurance of pluralism in the field of the Mass Media, so that they fulfill the social mission, as the Constitution requires of course. Mr. Chionidis characterized the provisions for the Registers of the Printed and Electronic Press as a provision that serves transparency in the distribution of state money. Referring to the provisions of the draft law for the minimum required number of employees at the television stations, the ND rapporteur said that they are reasonable because the aim is not to close the television stations and in this sense all the jobs will be lost.

“The bill does not address any of the many and important problems of the printed and electronic media,” said the SYRIZA-PS rapporteur Anastasia Gara and denounced “series of services to mothers”. “We ask that you withdraw Article 32, which brings about the further reduction of the minimum number of employees in television stations established by the SYRIZA government and the then competent minister Nikos Pappas. The further reduction of the number of workers, after the reduction, which the government proceeded with the Lebanon law, is a new intervention gift in favor of the canal managers. You know very well that this new harmful regulation will bring the loss of hundreds of jobs in the channels, a new wave of flexible contracts and further intensification of work”, said the SYRIZA-PS rapporteur. Mrs. Gara also asked for the withdrawal of article 34, “by which it is foreseen to give advertising time and space in return for the purchase of shares of a company, without valuation by a certified public accountant”. As he said, “this is an unprecedented arrangement, with which you give the green light to some to be able to buy even entire companies with ‘air'”. The MP called the new postponement of the obligation of TV stations to broadcast in high definition a “gift to the channel owners”. He also stated that not even the Journalistic Ethics and Ethics Committee will be able to correct “the works and days of the ND in terms of freedom of the press and the non-transparent distribution of public money in the Media”.

“It is a difficult period and there needs to be an exercise of balance between the owners of the printed press and the electronic press and the workers, between the central mass media and the provincial media, which have different needs”, pointed out the special buyer of PASOK-KINAL Haris Kastanidis while he characterized as justified the complaints made, mainly by the provincial press, that certain conditions create problems for their survival. “There is an issue with the fact that for many years no collective labor agreement has been signed between the workers and the owners of the media. There should be good mediation by the state, to find a solution. But in what I called an exercise in balance, the government seems to lean more towards one side, while it should also ensure the interests of workers, journalists and the rest”, said Haris Kastanidis.

“This is a bill for even greater government and state control over the press. It is a giantization of the entanglement between the businesses in the field of the Mass Media and the state”, complained the special buyer of the KKE Manolis Syntyhakis. “The government seeks to control the content of the media, extorting with the subsidy, which are most in need, not the large business groups that also own the Media, but smaller businesses, mainly, with purely activity in the field of information and of entertainment, such as the regional and local media”, said the KKE member of parliament and warned that a new “crack” in labor is coming. He also described as dangerous the provisions that provide for the establishment of a Committee of Journalistic Ethics and Ethics and described as hypocritical the fact that the safeguarding of pluralism is promoted although everyone knows that “the projection of events, goes as far as it does not threaten the bourgeois political system and capitalist power”.

“This Committee is subjective, it will operate and decide with subjective criteria”, said the expert buyer of the Hellenic Solution Konstantinos Chitas about the Journalistic Ethics and Ethics Committee and underlined that it should have clear responsibilities, with a clear scope of application and not used by the respective government for reasons that have nothing to do with the independence of the press.

“The government is proceeding with a further reduction of the minimum number of staff employed by television stations. Another pre-election gift, a gesture of goodwill to the entangled channel masters to discount their continued support,” said MeRA25 special buyer Sofia Sakorafa. “The sick situation, in terms of freedom and especially in terms of the independence of the press in Greece, is reflected in the shameful ranking of our country in the 108th place worldwide and the last in the EU for 2022. We owe this to the dominant political system that demonstrates and here are his permanent characteristics, that is, selfishness and inadequacy”, said the Member of Parliament of MeRA25.

RES-EMP

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