Shortly after the announcement the immediate closure of ERT on Tuesday, thousands rush to the main ERT headquarters in a northern Athens suburb to show their support. Photo: CFP

 

Greece's government promised on Wednesday to relaunch a slimmed-down state broadcaster ERT in a matter of weeks after a firestorm of protests from journalists, trade unions and coalition partners over its sudden closure.

The government yanked ERT off the air at midnight just hours after announcing the move on Tuesday, in the most dramatic public sector closure yet in the struggle to shore up finances and meet the terms of an international bailout.

Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou told Reuters the shutdown was decided six weeks ago and was unrelated to the failure to sell state gas firm DEPA or to an ongoing inspection visit by EU and IMF lenders in Athens.

The journalists' union denounced a coup d'etat to muzzle information and called for strikes in all Greek media and some ERT journalists were occupying the state broadcaster's building.

In a potential blow to Greece's efforts to turn around its economy and pull out of a six-year recession, equity index provider MSCI downgraded the troubled euro zone country to emerging market status from developed market on Tuesday.

MSCI said the Athens stock exchange did not reflect the improved practices in developed markets for securities borrowing, lending facilities, short selling and transferability of shares. It had also not met the developed market criteria for size for the past two years.

The Athens bourse shrugged off the expected downgrade, with the benchmark index up 0.6 percent. Brokers said more money may end up invested in Greek stocks over the medium term from the country's weighting in emerging market indices.

"I would not rush to view this as negative. Flow-wise it could turn out positive in the medium term," said Theodore Krintas, head of wealth management at Attica Bank.

The government decided to pull ERT off air hours after the announcement because of fears that workers would damage state equipment, spokesman Kedikoglou said. A slimmed down version of ERT will be relaunched as early as a few weeks and by early autumn at the latest, he said. "We didn't shut down ERT, we temporarily suspended its operations to fix it and make it work on a healthy basis," he said.

Broadcast journalists began an indefinite strike in protest, and television channels carried reruns and documentaries on Wednesday. Staff at the shuttered state channel NET continued broadcasts on the Internet without government approval.

Strikes at newspapers and other print media will begin Thursday, the journalists' union said.

"The strike will only end when the government takes back this coup d'etat which gags information," it said.

Reuters