The government of Robert Golob has usurped the public media by enacting the Radio-Television Slovenia Act. The viewers know this, and the government of Robert Golob knows this. The Prime Minister has even publicly acknowledged the takeover of the public media. The European Commission also knows this, because the outgoing Commissioner, Věra Jourová, actively participated in the mutilation of the Slovenian national media outlet. However, this is not reflected in the European Commission’s annual report, which was published after the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen.
In its annual report, the Commission concludes that the new governance model of RTV Slovenia has contributed to its independence. The only problem in the Slovenian public service media is apparently the “financial crisis.” The European Commission argues that changes in funding are needed. In other words, the European Commission is recommending that Slovenians pay even more money for an already wasteful public service and, in its view, an independent media.
But the authors of the report seem to have forgotten how Golob, in a podcast that aired on Radio-Television Slovenia, expressed his regret that he had taken the legal route to take over RTV. “We wanted to skip this stage together with the civil society, after which the Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda) coalition would take over RTV. And that was our mistake,” he said. Later, when the usurpation succeeded, and the rule of law fell with it, he was even more explicit, saying to a television host on RTV that “All of us at RTV dedicated ourselves to getting rid of the Janšaists. And I know that you know exactly what that means.”
However, the European Commission apparently believes that such public acknowledgements by the Prime Minister are merely an indication of the independence of the public service media. How can this be?
Dr Matej Avbelj responded to the report – which was published with a three-week delay, only after the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission – in his latest column in the newspaper Finance. As he wrote, the expectation of a “salvation” from Brussels was in vain. “Additionally, we had really high qualitative expectations. But we had a revolt of the whole judiciary about the disrespect of the Constitutional Court’s decisions. A political purge in the police. There were illegal purchases of judicial palaces, and there was also the distribution of money to the civil society. Conflicts of interest flourished. Depoliticised television showed its true colours. Media ownership became even more non-transparent, and so did corruption and money laundering. There is simply too much to put into words. So, we hoped, as we did last year, for redemption from Brussels. But our hope was in vain,” he wrote.
How is the Slovenian part of the European Commission’s Annual Report produced?
How could the European Commission afford to put out such a carelessly prepared report? Avbelj explained that since Juncker, the European Commission has been a political body that issues political acts written by officials with a “clear value, certainly policy, and perhaps also political tendency.” As he pointed out, the report is produced in close cooperation with those who are supposed to be supervised, that is to say, it is produced within the interest-ridden branches of the executive and the judiciary.
“But in Slovenia, the situation is even worse – in fact, it is downright incestuous. Not only is the content of the report largely fed to the Commission from the mouth of a single institution – the Peace Institute, which is apparently – even though there are three law faculties in Slovenia – the Commission’s only credible source on the rule of law. The report also blindly trusts our dominant civil society, which, for the purposes of the political mandate of the current government, has been quite openly politically engaged. Its credibility as a trustworthy source is, therefore, zero,” Avbelj wrote in his article.
How von der Leyen lied to the conservatives
The three-week delay in the publication of the annual report shows how “political”, even incestuous in Avbelj’s terminology, the document really is. Why? The leader of the opposition in Slovenia, Janez Janša, explains: “The report was stopped by Meloni. Von der Leyen withdrew it (saying there would be an audit) because she was still negotiating with the European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR) for support. After she was elected with the help of the left-wing coalition, the report (the main targets are Hungary and Italy, while only the left is praised in Slovenia and Poland) was published.”
Ž. K.
