At a recent meeting of the European People’s Party (EPP), Slovenian MEP Romana Tomc launched an initiative for a discussion of the unacceptable employee purges at the national media outlet Radio-Television Slovenia (RTVS). The President of EPP, Manfred Weber, has already condemned the said purges and also called on the European Commissioner Věra Jourová to immediately take action regarding the situation in Slovenia.
“In a democracy, media pluralism is a strength and not a threat! To see how journalists, editors and directors at RTV Slovenia are being fired practically overnight is alarming. I am calling on Věra Jourová to immediately take action. We will not tolerate double standards,” Weber wrote on the social network X.
Before Weber’s recent comments, MEP Milan Zver had already addressed a written parliamentary question to the European Commission, calling on the Commission to clarify its position on the personnel purges in question. Two other MEPs co-signed the question, namely Romana Tomc and Franc Bogovič. Meanwhile, the New Slovenia party (Nova Slovenija – NSi) MEP Ljudmila Novak did not decide to co-sign the question – she instead tried to relativise the personnel purge. However, the President of the NSi party, Matej Tonin, strongly condemned the purge.
“All those who are ideologically not close to the extreme left and the current government have recently been removed from their positions at the public institution RTV Slovenia. In the name of depoliticisation, which is, in fact, complete politicisation, the following have been removed: the Director-General of RTV, the Director of TV Slovenia, the Editor-in-Chief of the news programme, the Editor of the domestic policy, the Editor of the foreign policy, the Editor of the daily news programme, the Editor of the web portal, and the presenters of the daily news programmes are also being removed. Programmes critical of the work of the current government are being removed from the programme. It has also been announced that programmes exposing the crimes of totalitarian regimes, especially communism, will be cancelled,” MEP Zver wrote in his parliamentary question.
The consequences of the political purge
On Tuesday, we witnessed the consequences of the political purging of editorial staff. After the old management board of the public institution was dismissed, further dismissals of the disruptive journalists followed. Thus, Luka Svetina is no longer the host of the show Odmevi (Echoes), and Nejc Krevs and Valentina Plaskan are no longer the hosts of the news show Dnevnik (Daily News). In addition, Plaskan was taken from RTV to the hospital in an ambulance on Tuesday, allegedly because of severe stress. It has also been revealed that Plaskan was working on a piece about Prime Minister Golob’s recent trips abroad with a private jet and was thus the target of mobbing. Practically all of the mainstream media who are in favour of the government of Robert Golob decided not to report on the event in question.
Ž. K.
