Examination Committee: What the President of the ESR and the Chairman of the Admission Committee of the ‘We Stay Home’ project submitted

The role of the ESR would be activated ex officio, only if the issue of violation of the law was raised by the media themselves, explained the president of the National Broadcasting Council, Athanasios Koutroumanos, during his examination in the Commission of Inquiry “to investigate the investigation of the opinion, degradation of institutions and waste of public money “.

In this context, and when asked if there were any complaints or grievances in the ESR regarding the distribution of advertising expenditure on radio and television stations by the government, Mr. Koutroumanos replied that there were no such complaints, but even if there were, there is no reason in the ESR for this, as there are other Authorities competent to address.

“There has been no specific complaint to the Authority that the government has in any way attempted to manipulate the media through the pandemic advertising campaign, which is why the ESR has never considered such a thing,” Koutroumanos said.

Asked to comment on the statements of the Minister of Development and Investment ‘Adonis Georgiadis but also of the then Deputy Minister and Government Spokesman, Stelios Petsas, regarding the exclusion of the Documento newspaper from the “We Stay at Home” campaign, he replied that “I am not allowed answer – in fact in the capacity of a witness and in addition in the capacity of an institution, which has no reason to comment on statements of a politician by nature “.

Regarding the control of the polls, the president of the ESR replied that the legislator has assigned him to SEDEA, the competent body to check the accuracy, authenticity and completeness of the data and the reliability of the polls. After conducting a survey, the company has to submit the relevant data to its client and to SEDEA, while to the ESR to submit only the so-called “research identity data” – a notification, however, which had been faded for a long time. The ESR can intervene (at least as has been the case to date) if the polling company (SEDEA) finds that there has been a violation with a conviction. “Then he addresses the ESR, in order to impose a sanction on the polling company that committed the violation,” Mr. Koutroumanos clarified.

Asked if since July 2019 there has been a dispute regarding the result produced by certain polling companies, or possibly any complaints about any irregularities, he answered that “there has been no such complaint from 2016 until today when I am chairman of the National Broadcasting Council” as and never “did I receive a complaint that a poll was conducted erratically by the media.” Especially if the company Opinion Poll for the poll of 31-5-2021 had disclosed the identity of the poll to the ESR, Mr. Koutroumanos reserved the right to check it and inform the Commission.

Finally, regarding the free messages that the radio and television stations are obliged to transmit and concern health issues, Mr. Koutroumanos said that according to the Rules, they can not exceed forty seconds and the television and radio stations have a daily obligation. to transmit messages of social content, not exceeding three minutes in total. Thus, a channel or a radio station cannot be forced to broadcast social content messages for free for more than three minutes. According to the current legislation, social messages must be displayed at a time of high viewing, but only up to forty seconds. That is, in essence, to display only one social message in a zone of high spectacle, in the so-called prime time.

The testimony of Iordanis Giamouridis

The presentation of the chairman of the committee for the receipt of the work of the information campaign “We stay at home”, Iordani Giamouridis, (head of the Audiovisual and Internet department of the Media Supervision department of the as relevant documents that had been requested by SYRIZA yesterday, arrived and were distributed to the rapporteurs of the parties at 2 in the morning, with the result that the latter did not have time to process them.

The rapporteur of the official opposition, Giannis Ragousis, stated that these documents are essential for the examination of the witness and asked for the postponement of his examination – a proposal which was drafted by the rapporteur of KINAL George Kaminis and the KKE MP Maria Komninaka. The majority of ND rejected the request, while the chairman of the committee, Giannis Kefalogiannis, stated that “based on the history of all the examination and pre-investigation committees, it does not mean that every time a document is requested there should be a request for postponement, nor There is a question of invalidity of the procedure, as it was heard. The submission of the requested documents yesterday was actually done in record time and was digitized during the day. “where documents will always come in the file. We can not go through a process where every time we ask for a document, we will also request a postponement.”

Regarding the management criteria of the “We Stay Home” information campaign, Mr. Yamouridis said that his committee did not have the authority to check the criteria by which each advertisement was given, but only if the contract has been followed in relation to with deliverables. A non-universal sampling was performed on all 1,232 media outlets, including responsible statements, feeds, screenshots from sites and newspapers, to establish that there was evidence that the project had actually been carried out.

To the question “if the contractor, the company ‘INITIATIVE’, which was also proposed by the Presidency of the Government through the competent deputy minister, was the one who approved which media would receive an advertisement or vice versa” Mr. Yamouridis answered that ” The contract states that the proposal should be prepared by the contractor for the purpose of the final selection of the instruments. the contract “. “We did not have the authority to check who is making the final choice. You will see that in the Minutes, I mention that the contractor ‘suggests and utilizes’ the media. That is, the lists included in the deliverables, which are at the same time proposal and follow-up, we refer them to the Minutes, stating that the contractor ‘proposes and utilizes’ “.

Mr. Giamouridis stated that “he did not find out as to the part of the Contract, who proposes and who decides, some deviation or some violation of the terms of the contract, which does not allow him to proceed with the receipt of the project”. He testified that any correspondence concerning the whole project was between the contracting Authority and the Initiative – and did not pass through the receiving committee.

ND – SYRIZA statements

The ND MPs – members of the inquiry committee – state in a statement that “the Inquiry Committee for the polls and the media is boomeranging for SYRIZA. of the election analyst Ilias Nikolakopoulos for the company Opinion Poll, but in addition, the examination of the witnesses is evolving into a domino of unpleasant revelations about Koumoundourou “.

ND MPs “accuse SYRIZA of covering up the companies Vox Pop, Common View and Bridging Europe” and remind that “in the Committee on Institutions and Transparency, the president of the ESR himself had presented over the period 2015-2019 overwhelming evidence in favor of the promotion of the former co-government ANEL and SYRIZA “. They conclude by saying that “the embarrassment about the impasse that SYRIZA is in is pervasive. That is why it resorts to the constant tactics of disorientation, with alleged revelations such as the document that the newspaper Documento is supposed to ‘discover’. ‘Coal is the treasure gentlemen “This letter is not the product of a journalistic discovery, but one of the documents distributed to the deputies and which clearly states that the distribution of the advertisement was inspired and implemented by the contractor company”.

The deputies of SYRIZA – members of the Inquiry Committee, from their side in a statement state that “the exclusive responsibility of Mitsotaki-Petsa was revealed in relief today in the Inquiry, despite the methods and the successive coups of ND. With indisputable presumptions, It turned out that the manipulation of public opinion with public money, was organized and carried out directly by the Prime Minister, ie Mr. Mitsotakis – Petsa. “We have transmitted all the orders to the Media, as defined in the Convention (hereinafter the Media), which you have notified us of execution, in our capacity as the contractor.” In a satanic coincidence, the revelations were made on time. Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has announced that he is stepping down from politics over a scandal involving the manipulation of the commonwealth. νώμης. Here, not only do we have no corresponding political sensitivity, but on the contrary the work of the Examination is hindered in every way. One week later, the information requested by SYRIZA-PS. with the company correspondence and the results of the audits, have not yet been given. The regime N.D. of Mr. Mitsotakis, gives her own answer why she hides St. Skin from the committee and the truth from the Greek people “.