At the end of October, the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) parliamentary group requested an extraordinary session of the National Assembly’s Committee on Culture to be convened, in order to discuss the extremely poor situation at the national media outlet, Radio-Television Slovenia (RTVS). But the debate did not actually take place. Instead, the coalition’s steamroller in the committee decided that there would be no debate at all. However, things clearly have not worked out in their favour, because the SDS MPs announced that an extraordinary sitting of the National Assembly would be convened on the same subject.
“At the extraordinary session of the Committee on Culture, the Freedom Movement coalition forbids a debate on the situation at RTV Slovenija!!!! It seems that the latest opinion polls are so bad for the government coalition that they are afraid to talk about the fact that they have thrown 15 million euros at RTV, while at the same time, the increase in the RTV contribution will burden all households with an additional 15 euros a month,” wrote the SDS MP Andrej Hoivik.
The request for an extraordinary session of the National Assembly was made because the SDS party believes that the authorities have completely misused the term “depoliticisation,” and because of unacceptable acts of censorship, bullying, interference with human integrity and dignity, and failure to comply with legal obligations.
Namely, before the beginning of its mandate, the Golob government set the “depoliticisation” of the public media outlet as one of its priority objectives. After coming to power, it drafted an amendment to the Radio-Television Slovenia Act, which (very likely) illegally terminated the legally granted mandates to members of the governing bodies of the institution, followed by a pogrom against the staff and the programming scheme. Journalists began to leave the media outlet, and the plurality of reporting was drastically reduced. At the same time, the media was plunged into a crisis of governance and financial difficulties, despite the injection of taxpayers’ money.
Any discussion of the situation at RTV is apparently forbidden
A debate on the situation at the national media outlet would, therefore, be most welcome, but not for the ruling coalition, which has contributed decisively to the bad situation. It is very likely for this reason that the President of the Committee on Culture, Sara Žibrat, proposed that the item be removed from the agenda. In her explanation, she referred to the Constitution and freedom of journalistic reporting. The decision was met with a strong reaction from the SDS party.
SDS MP Andrej Hoivik commented that the SDS parliamentary group was opposed to “manoeuvres to silence democracy, to silence the opposition by not holding this extraordinary session, and we are strongly opposed to this proposal. In fact, the proposal is contrary to the Rules of Procedure and the provisions of the Committee on Culture.”
MP Hoivik announced that a press conference would be held today due to the coalition’s move and that a request for an extraordinary session of the National Assembly on this topic would be made soon.
9 Coalition MPs voted in favour of the decision, while 6 MPs voted against.
“I am amazed at the reins the President of the Committee is taking into her own hands. A group of MPs has made a proposal to convene the sitting, the sitting has been convened, the invited guests are in the Chamber, and you are proposing a decision that this item is not admissible. And you in the coalition will vote that this debate will not take place,” commented SDS MP Bojan Podkrajšek before the vote.
Ž. K.
