The ruling confirmed that Greece had failed to implement the electronic communications competition Directive (2002/77/EC, the “Directive”) .

The Directive aims at ensuring that competitive market conditions prevail across the European Union. According to the Directive, Member States had to inform the Commission of the measures taken to comply with it, including broadcasting transmission services, by July 24th, 2003.

All Member States except Greece have notified measures to implement the Directive. On February 14th, 2006, Greece notified its new electronic communications law to the Commission. However, broadcasting transmission services are explicitly excluded from the scope of the law. This infringes the Directive which extended the principle of full market liberalisation to all electronic communications services, including broadcasting services.

On April 10th, 2006, the Commission asked Greece for information on the state of implementation of its obligations, by way of a “letter of formal notice” under EC Treaty infringement procedures for failure to respect a Court ruling (Article 228). Greece replied on June 26th, 2006 that a new media law would also implement the Directive as regards broadcasting transmission services.

The Commission then formally requested Greece to comply with the Court ruling before the end of December 2006 in the form of a "reasoned opinion", the second step of the infringement procedure under Article 228. In its reply of March 13th, 2007 Greece however informed the Commission that it had not yet fully complied with the ruling.

Two years after the Court ruling, Greece has still not notified any implementing measures for broadcasting transmission services to the Commission.

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