Greek Govt Support for Media Comes at Expense of Transparency

The decisions have raised criticism among opposition MPs that the government is using the COVID-19 measures to improve its relations with the media without transparency.

More concerns were raised when the contract to implement the 11-million-euro publicity campaign was directly awarded to a private company with a three per cent commission on the total amount, which amounts to 330,000 euros. The criteria for how media outlets will be chosen to carry the publicity material and what amounts of money will be distributed to the chosen media outlets have also not been made public.

On top of this, the implementation of the programme by a private company removes the responsibility to upload information on the allocation of funds to the public transparency registry, which would have been necessary if the government had decided to implement the programme without an intermediary.

"There are a number of pertinent questions around this campaign that the government will have to answer," veteran MP Sofia Sakorafa from the Mera 25 party told BIRN.

"Why is this campaign necessary if media are already obliged to broadcast free messages and they are reporting on COVID-19 from early morning till late at night anyway? How was the implementing partner chosen, using which criteria and out of what other companies? Since we are talking about public funds, which state or independent authority will examine which allocations [are made] and under what criteria they happened? Is there going to be transparency so we all learn which media were funded and with how much?"

An urgent meeting of the Greek parliament's Transparency Committee discussed the issues on April 10. Answering questions regarding the direct award to a private company as well as the suspension of...