EBU President Jean-Paul Philippot said on Friday he had asked Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras to allow public broadcaster ERT to function, adding that the EBU would continue to press the issue at the highest EU level.

Emerging from the meeting with EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre, Mr Philippot told waiting reporters: “We expressed the emergency to re-establish public signal on TV, radio and web; they explained their point of view, the situation today, they explained that also for the future they will create a new public company fully respected, in full accordance with public values.”

The EBU Mr Philippot said that the legality of a recent EBU intervention to put ERT’s news channel NET back on air had been discussed during the meeting, which he said was an “honest, frank discussion”.

When asked if the EBU would pull down the satellite signal, Mr Philippot said his organization would respect all laws and regulations of the Greek government, but would continue to lobby for ERT in Greece and would meet European Commission President José Manuel Barroso.

Mr Philippot added that all laws had to be respected, but that freedom of expression was his top priority.

"For us there are several laws and we have to respect all the laws, but for my own personally, freedom of expression is maybe up (higher than) to other laws, so we will try to do all what we can do in accordance of all rules and principles of the public services," he said.

With EBU support ERT has continued to transmit live television and radio shows for a fourth day using EBU infrastructure, defying the government's order to shut down their operation and evacuate the headquarters.

However, the three channels that used to show ERT programming on televisions remain black.