Greek PM offers to reopen state broadcaster

Greece’s prime minister has offered to reopen a pared-down version of the state broadcaster under temporary management and reshuffle the cabinet, a government official said today, to try to defuse a political crisis and avoid a snap election.

ERT's abrupt closure last week in the name of austerity to please EU and IMF lenders triggered a deep rift in the ruling coalition, throwing the debt-choked nation back into turmoil just as faint hopes of a recovery had begun to sprout. Prime minister Antonis Samaras made the offer to revive the broadcaster during talks with his coalition - allowing the two junior parties, the Socialist PASOK and Democratic Left, to pick the deputy minister who will oversee it in a transitional form. "It's a last-ditch move by the prime minister to reach a compromise and avoid elections," the official said.

The transitional broadcaster would then pave the way for the smaller, cheaper public broadcaster that Samaras had initially promised would replace ERT. The official said Samaras also offered to reshuffle his cabinet at the end of June and update the coalition agreement with his allies to try to improve cooperation between the parties.

Exactly a year after a parliamentary election brought Samaras and his two leftist allies to power, the parties have fed fears of a hugely disruptive snap poll by refusing to compromise over an entity widely unloved until its shock overnight closure. “It’s clear that over the last days any semblance of logic in dealing with this issue has been lost,” said Costas Panagopoulos, head of ALCO pollsters. “The most absurd thing is that we are talking about a possible destruction of the country over ERT.”