EBU accepted NERIT after 1Mi. of debts was paid. Coincidence?

The General Assembly of EBU proceeded to the recognition of the Greek public broadcaster NERIT as an official member of the union. The decision came just before the beginning of this year's Eurovision process, after a series of complications that has lasted about one and a half years, since the closure of ERT. Interesting is the fact that the Union of European public service broadcasters accepted the Greek broadcaster just a few days after the Greek Ministry of Finance approved the payment of one million euros to the EBU, as repayment of debts piled up since the operation of ERT, including the interim broadcaster DT, during the coverage of the Greek Presidency of the European Union.

We had predicted the increased possibility of a positive decision in our article, when the decision to pay the massive amount was announced. The EBU itself spoke only about "important steps taken in a short time for the outset construction of the new public service broadcaster."

In any case, regardless of the above coincidence, with this decision, EBU accepts the fiercest cuts that have ever been imposed to a broadcaster in Europe. It has a been a plan of cuts, that by closing down ERT removed 1,000 jobs and by operating NERIT, it substituted 30 broadcast services with only 5, most of which air recorder content and are based on external subcontractors. The risk of extended cuts of this scale to other broadcasters in other European countries in times of financial crisis (as was done in Valencia) is visible and theoretically the had a duty to confront this possibility by any means.