The Slovak parliament’s approval on Thursday evening of a controversial government bill to dissolve the public service broadcaster RTVS and replace it and management with a politicised entity has drawn sharp criticism from employees, opposition politicians and media advocacy groups.
“Today the [Slovak] Parliament definitively abolished the free public media – RTVS. From July 1 it will be replaced by the docile and tame STVR. It is a disgrace to the ruling coalition and a disgrace to Slovakia. But we say – you can’t silence us or the free media! We will challenge this law in the Constitutional Court,” said Michal Simecka, head of the largest opposition party Progressive Slovakia and a former vice-president of the European Parliament.
With the new president, Peter Pellegrini, a member of the coalition Hlas party, assuming office last week, there is wide acceptance that he will sign the bill into law by July 1.
The legislation, which will dissolve RTVS and replace it with a new body called STVR (Slovak Television and Radio) fully under the control of the government, is seen as part of a trend by populists like Robert Fico and Viktor Orban in Hungary to turn public service broadcasters into government mouthpieces and stifle the critical media. The annual Medium Freedom Poll, which surveyed people in each of the four Central European countries on March 13-24, found that a majority in each expressed concern about the current state of media freedom, with Slovaks displaying the highest concern (65 per cent) followed by Hungary (62 per cent).
Sona Weissova, part of the RTVS employee initiative fighting the reform, warned that the public broadcasting bill pushed through by the Smer-led coalition of Prime Minister Fico “is not just a simple change of letters”.
“We are afraid that the new act has a single goal – to take full control of broadcasting,” Weissova said on Friday. “There is pressure not just on the public broadcaster, but on private media and other culture and democratic institutions as well. Analysts say the Slovak government took Viktor Orban’s ‘playbook’ and what happened in Hungary in 10 years, in Slovakia could happen in one year.”
The three-party coalition defends the legislation as a way of “strengthening the public-law character of [the broadcaster] and ensuring respect for plurality and the principles of democracy and free creation,” Culture Minister Martina Simkovicova, an openly pro-Russian member of the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS), told reporters on Thursday.
But critics point out that Smer and its allies have made no secret of their desire to neuter RTVS, which they consider biased and concerned only with “mainstream” opinions. During its stints in power, including the current one, Smer has normalised attacks against the country’s independent media, specifically targeting the director general of RTVS, Lubos Machaj, whose term in office will be prematurely ended by the legislation. Machaj called it a “black day” for Slovakian media.
Media advocacy groups cite the provisions in the legislation as clearly designed to politicise the public broadcaster and restrict media freedom. For example, the new oversight board of STVR will consist of nine members, five of whom will be appointed by parliament (currently controlled by the Smer-led coalition) and four by the Ministry of Culture.
“This would hand the ruling majority effective control over the board and, therefore, the director general, leading to the likely rapid politicisation of the new public television and radio channels,” said the International Press Institute (IPI), a global press freedom advocacy group.
However, the fate of the legislation may not be settled by the president’s signature. Despite changes made by the coalition to the bill as it wended its way through the legislative process, analysts argue it still falls foul of the EU’s new Media Freedom Act (MFA), which is designed to protect media pluralism and independence in the EU, and is due to come into force by the end of this year.
The director general of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Noel Curran, said the “composition and powers granted to the new governing council of STVR would be in breach of the MFA, which lays down strict safeguards for the independent functioning of [public service media].”
The German Journalists Association (DJV) on Friday called on the European Commission to initiate rule-of-law proceedings against Slovakia. “The Slovak government majority is thus acquiring a meek broadcaster from which it can expect no criticism,” said DJV Federal Chairman Mika Beuster. “Freedom of broadcasting has been abolished with the current parliamentary decision. This is a serious violation of the fundamental values of the European Union. The EU Commission must take action.”
The European Commission has yet to respond publicly to the vote in Slovakia’s parliament.