ND slams Tsipras for comment on pending court ruling on TV license auction

The main conservative opposition New Democracy has slammed Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for a comment during his press conference in Thessaloniki on Sunday when he indicated that there was no chance a top court would annul a recent auction of TV licenses.

During the press conference, Tsipras suggested it was impossible that the Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, would overturn the competition in a ruling expected in the coming weeks. Before the auction, TV channels had appealed to the court, describing the competition as unconstitutional.

ND condemned Tsipras’s comments as a “raw, provocative and unprecedented intervention.”

The premier is “preordaining the outcome of the appeals to the Council of State,” ND said, adding that it was sure that judges would “responsibly perform their duties according to their conscience and not following the orders of Mr Tsipras.”