Bid to break deadlock over TV license auction put off until Thursday

A meeting of Parliament's speakers that had been scheduled to take place on Monday aimed at reconvening the National Broadcasting Council (ESR) and breaking the deadlock that has followed a court ruling declaring the government's television license auction as unconstitutional was postponed until Thursday by House Speaker Nikos Voutsis.

Voutsis cited the government reshuffle over the weekend as the reason for the postponement as some of people with parliamentary posts were appointed to ministries and needed to be replaced. Costas Gavroglou who had been head of Parliament's educational affairs committee but was appointed Education Minister is one of those cases.

However, according to sources, the real reason for the postponement was the lack of common ground between the government and the main opposition New Democracy with the latter insisting on the categorical abolition of a law drafted by State Minister Nikos Pappas transferring the authority of overseeing a TV license auction from the ESR to him.