Top court to rule on appeals against TV license auction
The Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, is on Friday to hear the appeal of six television channels against a recent government auction of nationwide TV licenses.
As a political row grows over the transparency and legality of the competition, which restricted the number of nationwide licenses to four, the court’s plenary session is to deem whether the auction violates the country’s Constitution as the six channels claim.
The competition led to four applicants securing licenses – the owners of Skai and Antenna channels and two businessmen, Yiannis Kalogritsas, whose father is a leftist contractor who recently bagged a public works project, and Vangelis Marinakis, a shipowner who also owns Olympiakos soccer club.
It is not only TV channels that have taken legal action. MPs of the main conservative opposition New Democracy who sit on Parliament’s ethics committee have also appealed to the Supreme Court against the competition.