Journalists continuing to broadcast at Athens headquarters, despite government order to cease operations last week
Party leaders in Greece's ruling coalition are to meet on Monday to try and heal the rift over last week's shutdown of the country's state TV and radio broadcaster as part of a bid to meet the country's bailout obligations.
Conservative prime minister Antonis Samaras's fragile three-party coalition, formed to save debt-ridden Greece from bankruptcy this time last yea,r has faced a massive backlash over the decision on 11 June to close ERT, with 2,700 staff put out of work.
The ERT closure has prompted two general strikes and drawn criticism from broadcasters in Greece and across Europe.
Samaras has refused to turn the "sinful" ERT back on, vowing over the weekend to fight to modernise a country he said had become a "Jurassic Park" of inefficiency and corruption.
His PASOK and Democratic Left government partners, aware that they risk humiliation and the loss of any future say over the coalition, rejected Samaras's offer of a limited restart of broadcasts. The three party leaders are to meet at 4.30pm (GMT) to seek a solution.
ERT journalists are still defiantly working at the broadcaster's studios with a bootleg feed available online and over satellite courtesy of an intervention by the European Broadcasting Union last week.
However, over the weekend at least one of the three satellite feeds being provided by the EBU, the body representing Europe's public service broadcasters, was cut after the government threatened legal action against anyone using the ERT logo.
Athens is now threatening legal action against the EBU, which helped ERT journalists uplink their makeshift news and current affairs feed from the studios up to satellites.
On Monday the EBU director general Ingrid Deltenre condemned Samaras's threat.
"We urge the Greek government to withdraw the threats made against satellite operators, and restore the continuity of public service media channels in Greece and across the world," she said in a statement.
ERT union Prospert lodged an appeal at Greece's supreme administrative court on Monday requesting the annulment of the government decision to close ERT on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.
The appeal will be heard in September 2013 but the union is looking for an interim order to force the government to re-open ERT.
Last week the directors general of 50 public service broadcasters including the BBC's Tony Hall urged Samaras to reverse his decision to close ERT.
At the weekend, Samaras described major protests against ERT's closure as "an excuse to halt reforms", insisting he would not take back his decision to close the broadcaster and replace it with a new state TV and radio organisation with fewer staff and a new charter.
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