Today the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the European group of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) voiced its opposition to the government's plans to integrate journalists working in public broadcasting and National News Agencies in the payroll of civil servants.

"Working in public media does not mean that you are a civil servant, quite the contrary: journalists are accountable to the public and they need to be independent politically and economically from the government," said the EFJ President Arne Konig. "It would be a very bad signal for journalists' credibility and independence if a member country of the European Union would merge journalists with the rest of the public sector."

The Greek government, under the pressure of international and European monetary institutions, wants to integrate all employees of the public media in a single unified payroll for all the public sector. This means that journalists employed by ERT (Greek Public Television) and ANA-MPA (Athens - Macedonian News Agency) would be considered as civil servants, but also that they would not be covered anymore by their current collective agreement.

"We feel that our 'classification' to the status of a civil servant is detrimental to our role as independent journalists," say the EFJ affiliates, the Journalists Union of Athens Daily Newspapers (ESIEA) and the Journalists' Union of Macedonia and Thrace Daily Newspapers (ESIEM-TH). "Journalists working in public media need to have the guarantee of their freedom to report independently in a time when the Greek audience requires honest, level-headed and unbiased information. This freedom is also ensured through the current National Collective Agreement for journalists."

The EFJ asks Elias Mossialos, the Government's Spokesman and State Minister responsible for Press Matters, to take these views into account and it reminds Greek authorities that the independence of public broadcasting is recognised by the Council of Europe and by binding EU case-law.