After a marathon ten-hour discussion and debate, the Parliamentary Committee of Institutions and Transparency decided to approve the appointments of Dimitris Tsaknis as ERT’s president and Lampis Tagmatarchis as ERT’s managing director.
Mr. Tsaknis received 9 positive, 4 negative and 2 ‘present’ votes, while Mr. Tagmatarchis received 7 positive, 5 negative and 3 ‘present’ votes. The appointment of ERT board members Michalis Grigoriou, Nikos Tranos and Elisavet Papakonstantinou were also approved with 9 positive votes.
During the debate, the President of Parliament Zoi Konstantopoulou quizzed Mr. Tagmatarchis over his previous tenure at the helm of ERT between 2010 and 2012. Mrs. Konstantopoulou had previously hinted that she disagreed with his appointment, but ultimately decided to vote ‘present’, rather than negative. SYRIZA MP Rachel Makri was not convinced by Mr. Tagmatarchis’ responses and however voted against his appointment.
SYRIZA’s parliamentary spokesperson Nikos Filis may have voted in favor of Mr. Tagmatarchis’ appointment , but underlined that his voter was not “carte blanche”, bur rather a test. Mr. Filis argued that he has not heard so far any plans on how ERT will avoid “reverting to what it was when it was shut down” and warned the new board members to not refute the great expectations.
Earlier, State Minister Nikos Pappas revealed that he received 153 applications for the positions, the vast majority of whom had no managing experience. Of those applicants 13 were selected and after a series of interviews, 5 were short-listed for the available positions, based on their prior job experiences and skills. Mr. Pappas noted that in his previous tenure at ERT, MR. Tagmatarchis achieved a 70-million-euro surplus.
