Public services have ground to a halt in Greece as unions begin a 24-hour general strike in protest over the government’s decision to shut down public broadcaster ERT as part of sweeping cost-cutting measures. Trains stood still, hospitals were operating on emergency footing and government offices were shut across the country during Thursday’s strike. Air traffic controllers were due to participate in a two-hour work stoppage starting from 1200 GMT and broadcast journalists held an indefinite strike, prompting private television broadcasters to shut down as well. The socialist and moderate leftist parties supporting the coalition government had called the decision on ERT “unacceptable”. A government source said late on Wednesday that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras would confer over the issue with his coalition partners. The government described its decision to shut the 75-year-old ERT as a temporary move before its relaunch in slimmed-down form.
‘Autocractic decision’: Simos Kedikoglou, spokesman for the government and a former state TV journalist, has described ERT as a “haven of waste”. “ERT is a typical example of unique lack of transparency and incredible waste. And that ends today,” he said. However, the move has angered the coalition partners keeping Samaras in power, restoring an atmosphere of crisis in a country that had seemed to be emerging from a political meltdown caused by near-bankruptcy. “What a lot of people have been saying to us is that, they are not, in principle, opposed to the idea of cleaning up the state machinery in general, and even the state broadcaster,” Al Jazeera’s Psaropoulos said. “But people are against the autocratic nature” of the decision. Despite the closure of ERT, it continues to broadcast the latest news through its website Representing about 2.5 million workers, the unions have gone on strike repeatedly since Europe was hit by a debt crisis in late 2009, although action has been less frequent and more muted lately than last year when marches frequently turned violent. The last nationwide strike was in February. Separately, a union representing journalists in Athens has called an indefinite strike of members, preventing some newspapers from appearing and forcing commercial broadcasters to air reruns of sitcoms and soap operas instead of the news. ERT has shed viewers with the rise of commercial television, and its three statewide channels had a combined audience share of only 13 percent. Many Greeks regard ERT as a wasteful source of patronage jobs for political parties. But the abruptness with which it was shut – with newscasters cut off in mid-sentence – was a shock.
