The Slovak government has approved a law that would abolish the public broadcaster RTVS and replace it with a “more objective” and less critical one towards the executive. In protest, the employees showed up to work dressed in black and together with over 70 thousand citizens they launched an appeal to the Commission and the EU Parliament to intervene: “We want to work freely”.
Yesterday the employees of the Slovak public service radio and television, Rtvs, showed up to work dressed in black to protest against the bill passed on Wednesday by the government led by Robert Fico. The norm that would like to abolish the public broadcaster and replace it with a new “more objective” one and less critical of the executive, it will have to wait for passage through Parliament before being definitively approved.
In particular, the law proposed by the Minister of Culture Martina Šimkovičová provides for the cancellation of Rtvs in favor of a new STaR (Slovak Television and Radio) body and the removal of its general director, who will no longer be appointed by Parliament but by a board composed by figures partly selected by the government. If the law were to receive the green light from Parliament, where the Fico government has the majority, the network’s current board of directors could be dissolved early, before its expiration scheduled for 2027.
On several occasions, the majority that supports the Slovak prime minister has repeatedly accused RTVS of being “politically biased”. The opposition instead claims that Fico’s intent is to “put an end to media freedom”. According to Michal Šimečka, leader of the Progressive Slovakia party, Fico’s decision can be compared to that of an “autocrat who must dominate and control everything”. The general director of the public service network, Ľuboš Machaj, also said he was “particularly concerned about the enormous pressure and interventions that could affect all fields of public radio and television service. The internal freedom of Rtvs editors will be put at risk danger.”
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Meanwhile, over seventy thousand Slovak citizens have sent an open letter to the European Commission and the members of the European Chamber to monitor the matter and intervene to recall the Slovak government. The signatories, including the NGO Stop Corruption Foundation and the international organization Reporters Without Borders, argue that the proposal “is in conflict with the recently adopted European Media Freedom Act, which should oblige states members of the Union to ensure the independent functioning of the public media”. The new European regulation establishes, among other things, that the appointment of the boards of directors of public media takes place in a non-discriminatory manner and that its members can be dismissed before the expiry of their mandate only if they no longer meet the professional requirements.
Furthermore, the accusations of political parallelism supported by the Fico government are not supported by any evidence. “The coalition has not yet presented any analysis of the ‘political biases’ of public media,” the letter reads. “On the contrary, research analyzes and assessments by the media regulator (Media Services Council) say the opposite.” In a video shared by Rtvs staff, the station’s employees warned that “the law could become a tool of political control for any government. Free and independent media should serve all citizens of the Slovak Republic, and not just ‘power ambition of any political party. We want to continue to work freely,” they concluded.
