Μια εβδομάδα πριν τον διαγωνισμό τραγουδίου της Eurovision το “Παρόν” αποκάλυψε ότι υπευθυνος επικοινωνίας της EBU, Jarmo Siim, με μήνυμα του στο Facebook προς Έλληνα δημοσιογράφο τον καλούσε να “θάψει” τη Σουηδική συμμετοχή στη Eurovision.
Το θέμα πήρε τεράστιες διαστάσεις στον Σκανδιναβικό, και όχι μόνο, τύπο, όμως οι αντιδράσεις των υπευθύνων της EBU ήταν περίεργες: Αρχικά θέλησαν να πλήξουν την αξιοπιστία του “Παρόν” με τον υπευθυνό της διοργάνωσης, Jon Ola Sand να δηλώνει πώς η συνομιλία ήταν ψεύτικη. Στην συνέχεια, και ενώ η μεγαλύτερη Σκανδιναβική εφημέριδα Aftonbladet επιβεβαίωσε την αυθεντικότητα της συνομιλίας, ζήτησαν παραπάνω στοιχεία. Όταν η Σκανδιναβική εφημερίδα δημοσιευσέ βίντεο με το πως ακριβώς επιβεβαίωσε το μήνυμα ζήτησαν να συναντήσουν την πηγή! Και όταν η πηγή μας δέχτηκε να συναντηθεί με μια ανεξάρτητη αρχή που θα όριζε η EBU για να επιβεβαιώσει την αυθεντικότητα της συνομιλίας, ο Jarmo Siim αποφάσισε να παραιτηθεί και η EBU έσπευσε να δηλώσει ότι το θέμα έχει κλείσει!
Τον Οκτώβριο του 2014 και με αφορμή το “μαύρο” στην ΕΡΤ, διερευνώντας τη σκοπιμότητα γύρω από τον αντισυμβατικό τρόπο διαχείρισης των χρημάτων που οργανισμοί όπως η ΕΡΤ πληρώνουν στην EBU, είχαμε έρθει σε επαφή με τον άνθρωπο που υπογράφει αυτά τα συμβόλαια ,τον Dr. Frank-Dieter Freiling, αντιπρόεδρο Διεθνών Σχέσεων της Γερμανικής Τηλεόρασης (ZDF). Στις επίμονες ερωτήσεις μας για το αν θα έπρεπε, εφόσον επί της ουσίας διαχειρίζονται χρήματα ευρωπαίων πολιτών, να ακολουθούν ανοικτές διαδικασίες, η απάντηση του Γερμανού ήταν πως «…η EBU είναι ιδιωτική εταιρεία, που λειτουργεί βάσει του ελβετικού δικαίου, και ως εκ τούτου δεν είναι υποχρεωμένη να κάνει διαγωνισμούς…».
Λίγους μήνες αργότερα ένα τεράστιο σκάνδαλο βρίσκει αναμεμειγμένη μια από τις εταιρείες που λαμβάνουν απευθείας αναθέσεις με υπογραφές του Dr Frank-Dieter Freiling: Ο Jarmo Siim είναι ένας από τους μόλις τρεις υπαλλήλους της εταιρίας Wow Works, η οποία λαμβάνει από την EBU πάνω από €420.000 ετησίως.
Δεδομένου ότι οι προηγούμενες διοικήσεις δεν ασκούσαν τα δικαιώματα ελέγχου που έχουν ως μέλη της EBU, η νέα διοίκηση της ΕΡΤ προτίθεται να ελέξει πως η ΕΒU διαχειρίζεται τα χρήματα που λαμβάνει από τους Έλληνες φορολογούμενους, και αν προτίθεται εκτός από αναθέσεις σε ημετέρους να προσκαλέσει και ελληνικές εταιρείες για παροχή υπηρεσιών;
EBU on the footsteps of FIFA!
Corruption scandals, direct contracts of thousands of euro to friends and attempts to cover up.
A week before the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, our newspaper “Paron” revealed that the Communication Coordinator of EBU/Eurovision, Mr. Jarmo Siim, has sent through Facebook a message to a journalist asking him to “keep on bashing the Swedish song”! The story become really big in the press around Europe, with newspapers like Pravda in Russia writing about the scandal.
What was really weird in the story is the way that the EBU managers reacted :
In the beginning they tried to harm the credibility of our newspaper with the Executive Supervisor, Jon Ola Sand, stating that the message we published was fake! Then, when the largest Nordic newspaper “Aftonbladet” confirmed our story, they asked to see more evidence and when the newspaper published a video of how exactly they confirmed that the message was indeed sent by the account of Jarmo Siim, EBU managers asked to meet our source themselves. Even though the demand of the EBU was against international law that protects journalists’ sources, the person that received the message accepted the offer and asked from the EBU to send an independent IT expert to examine the evidence. At that point, when it was obvious that there was no way out , Jarmo Siim conveniently resigned helping EBU to close the case!!!!! What EBU managers “forgot” is that Jarmo Siim is an employee of Wow Works, a company that has signed with the EBU two contracts with an annual fee of more than 440.000€. These contracts where appointed to Wow Works without following any kind of tender procedure.
In October 2014 we came in contact with the person responsible to sign these contracts,the vice president of international affairs of German broadcaster ZDF,Dr. Frank-Dieter Freiling. At that time we were looking into the way EBU is handling the money they receive from their members among them ERT. We asked several times and in all different ways Dr.Freiling, why the EBU is not following open tender procedures for its contracting since the money it is handling is money of the European taxpayers that finance national broadcasters. His answer at that time was that “The agreements are not subject to public procurement under Swiss law, as the EBU is a Private professional organisation.”
Today, a few months later, Wow Works has breached a very important term of its contracts with the EBU. The one that states ““The agency should not do any act or thing (or commit the EBU to any act or thing) which is damaging or detrimental to the reputation of the EBU and/or its Members and/or the name “Eurovision”. Nevertheless, EBU managers show a weird obsession in keeping these contracts, overlooking their branch by wow works and their dramatically high costs for the participating broadcasters, since the EBU is paying 441.955€ annually to a company that has only 3 employees.
The question now is if the new ERT managers will have a look into the way the EBU is handling the money they receive from Greek taxpayers and if they are going to demand from the EBU to open up the procedures so Greek companies will also have a chance to get awarded with these contracts.
What was really weird in the story is the way that the EBU managers reacted :
In the beginning they tried to harm the credibility of our newspaper with the Executive Supervisor, Jon Ola Sand, stating that the message we published was fake! Then, when the largest Nordic newspaper “Aftonbladet” confirmed our story, they asked to see more evidence and when the newspaper published a video of how exactly they confirmed that the message was indeed sent by the account of Jarmo Siim, EBU managers asked to meet our source themselves. Even though the demand of the EBU was against international law that protects journalists’ sources, the person that received the message accepted the offer and asked from the EBU to send an independent IT expert to examine the evidence. At that point, when it was obvious that there was no way out , Jarmo Siim conveniently resigned helping EBU to close the case!!!!! What EBU managers “forgot” is that Jarmo Siim is an employee of Wow Works, a company that has signed with the EBU two contracts with an annual fee of more than 440.000€. These contracts where appointed to Wow Works without following any kind of tender procedure.
In October 2014 we came in contact with the person responsible to sign these contracts,the vice president of international affairs of German broadcaster ZDF,Dr. Frank-Dieter Freiling. At that time we were looking into the way EBU is handling the money they receive from their members among them ERT. We asked several times and in all different ways Dr.Freiling, why the EBU is not following open tender procedures for its contracting since the money it is handling is money of the European taxpayers that finance national broadcasters. His answer at that time was that “The agreements are not subject to public procurement under Swiss law, as the EBU is a Private professional organisation.”
Today, a few months later, Wow Works has breached a very important term of its contracts with the EBU. The one that states ““The agency should not do any act or thing (or commit the EBU to any act or thing) which is damaging or detrimental to the reputation of the EBU and/or its Members and/or the name “Eurovision”. Nevertheless, EBU managers show a weird obsession in keeping these contracts, overlooking their branch by wow works and their dramatically high costs for the participating broadcasters, since the EBU is paying 441.955€ annually to a company that has only 3 employees.
The question now is if the new ERT managers will have a look into the way the EBU is handling the money they receive from Greek taxpayers and if they are going to demand from the EBU to open up the procedures so Greek companies will also have a chance to get awarded with these contracts.
