Slovakia’s Parliament shuts down public television. In its place, a new pro-government broadcaster

Brussels – A “black day” for the public service in Slovakia: with these words, the director of the Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS), Lubos Machaj, is preparing to pack his bags: The Parliament in Bratislava approved the controversial public service reform devised by the populist government of Robert Fico, which will replace RTVS with a new public broadcaster in the hands of the executive.

The measure was voted on last night (June 20): 78 deputies voted in favor of abolishing RTVS, while the opposition, in protest, left the Chamber before the vote. The law will come into effect in July once the new President of the Republic, the nationalist Peter Pellegrini, who has been in office since June 15, signs it. The leader of the main opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) party, Michal Šimečka, called the law shameful and said he would challenge it before the Constitutional Court.

In a statement published this morning, RTVS assured that it “respects the passage of the law” but drew attention to “the risks associated with the implementation of the law in its current form.” The new public service — Slovak Television and Radio (STVR) — will be led by a board of directors directly appointed by the government majority. It will consist of nine members, five appointed by Parliament and four by the Ministry of Culture, whose terms will begin concurrently. The Board of Directors will be in charge of appointing the Director General of STVR.

Harsh protests and criticism accompanied the approval process. Back in March, the Ministry of Culture presented it, the then President of Slovakia, Zuzana Čaputová, rejected it because it was “in clear contradiction to the new European law on media freedom, which is supposed to protect the independence of all media, especially public service media, from government and political interference.” The European Commission’s Vice-President responsible for policies on values and transparency, Věra Jourová, had also expressed serious concerns. Jourová is the godmother of the Media Freedom Act, which came into force on May 7, which, among other provisions, also set new rules to ensure the editorial independence of public media.

The Fico government withdrew some of the law’s most critical elements, but – as denounced by several international media organizations – “the bill still provides for a politicization of the public broadcaster by the government that would fatally undermine its independence.” In a statement signed by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), European Broadcasting Union (EBU), European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), International Press Institute (IPI), Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Free Press Unlimited (FPU), OBC Transeuropa (OBCT), and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the alarm over the seriousness of the effects “of such politicization for society as a whole.”