Parliament’s Council of Presidents to convene on Monday over NCRTV

Mitsotakis to meet with President of Hellenic Republic

In an effort to regain the political initiative, following the rejection of the TV license tenders by the Council of State (CoS), the country’s supreme administrative court, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras called for the convening of the council of presidents in parliament for Monday, in a last ditch attempt to reach an agreement with opposition parties on the formation of the National Council for Radio and Television (NCRTV). Amid an atmosphere of mounting political pressure, with the negotiations with the country’s creditors for the second review still open, and major opposition party New Democracy (ND) intensifying its push for early elections, the government finds itself against the ropes and hopes to successfully complete the formation of the new NCRTV to set the political agenda and win time by submitting a new draft bill on the TV landscape. Meanwhile, Kyriakos Mitotakis, the president of ND, has requested a meeting with the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos where he is expected to present his party’s consensus on the regulating the media landscape and he will propose that all powers linked to media licenses be transferred back to the NCRTV, as provided in the constitution. The leader of ND had called on Greek citizens to remain vigilant in light of the new developments, while he reiterated his demand for early elections.