Outgoing Radio and Television Slovakia (RTVS) General Director Lubos Machaj rejects arguments used by the governing coalition for the restructuring of the public broadcaster and warned that as of July 1 the Slovak Television and Radio (STVR), a successor organisation to RTVS, is supposed to be headed by a statutory deputy, yet his or her name is not even known at this point.
"A transition period will begin as of July 1, when a statutory deputy is supposed to come in. No one has said who that person will be thus far. I expected a standard communication, expected someone to get in touch with me a few days before the termination of my tenure and tell me they needed me to hand over materials and matters," Machaj said at a press conference.
The head of RTVS pointed out that a statutory deputy does not wield full powers and can sign only contracts up to €200,000. "But under the legislation, everything exceeding €100,000 must be sent for approval to the board, which won't be even staffed in that period, however," he said, warning that the deputy will thus be capable of signing only contracts up to €100,000. "That will pose a rather big problem in terms of preservation of production capacities for autumn and, in particular, the next year."
Machaj perceives the entire bill as purpose-built and claimed that the coalition is working with unverified information. He rejected allegations of RTVS being in the red or the arguments that RTVS doesn't engage in any in-house production.
Even though the coalition often claims that RTVS news-reporting is biased, Machaj has so far seen no rational arguments to support such statements. "Only the Media Services Board is tasked and capable of establishing what is and isn't the violation of the law, hence the violation of the principle of objectivity, and it hasn't found any such thing," he said and pointed to a recent survey, which established that RTVS boasts the most objective news-reporting.
The head of RTVS also broached a letter addressed to President Peter Pellegrini and Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) from representatives of public broadcasters in Europe. "They warn what might happen when the public media domain comes under strong pressure from politicians," he said.
(TASR)
