In the activities of the current Government of Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, and the same applies to all his previous Governments and cabinet changes, after which the Minister of Culture, Nina Obuljen Koržinek, is almost the only one who has remained a minister in continuity, there is one rule. Which could be best summarized by paraphrasing the title of a book by the German 1968er, Rudi Dutschke. He titled the book 'My Long March', referring to institutions, while the activities of Plenković's Governments could be summarized under the title 'a right-wing march through institutions'. In the end, it does not matter for the outcome whether the Croatian Prime Minister himself shares the ideological values of the decisions he made, just as it did not matter whether the late Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić intimately agreed with the change of name of Marshal Tito Square, since the outcome is the same. The name of that square is no longer there, and Plenković's government is realizing the ideological visions of his predecessor at the head of HDZ and the unfulfilled Prime Minister Tomislav Karamarko, as well as the right-wing satellite parties that were created after those dissatisfied with the supposedly centrist policies of the largest party left that same party. The only goal of the creation of these parties, which usually fail to survive a second run in the elections, was and remains to win a sufficient number of mandates with which they would become indispensable partners for HDZ, after which they would record symbolic victories in their ideological wars. The Homeland Movement has now succeeded in doing so, achieving a significant reduction in funding for the weekly Novosti, published by the Serbian National Council, and the cynicism of the whole story lies in the fact that when they entered the government, Milorad Pupovac de facto publicly accused the left of not wanting to enter a coalition with Plenković's HDZ, announcing exactly what was happening. It's as if Andrej Plenković himself isn't actually implementing their ideas and as if everyone else is crying out for a flood of new right-wingers in the country, except for the prime minister who has been in power in Croatia for a record long time.
Therefore, we need to go back to the period of his previous governments, formed after the HDZ itself realized that the open right-wing radicalism pushed by Tomislav Karamarko would simply put it in a losing position. And how, as a result, which not only costs them nothing, but also benefits them, it is best for them to pretend to be a washed-up centrist, and de facto implement Karamarko's policies. Only without any fuss and with a dry bureaucratic approach.
This is exactly what is happening and has been happening all along, since Nina Obuljen Koržinek has not restored anything that her predecessor at the head of the Ministry of Culture, Zlatko Hasanbegović, had systematically destroyed. In other words, an irreversible blow was struck against the independent cultural scene and various minority and ideologically suspect projects, platforms and publishing plans, only it was not done with the sole of her foot, but with the cynicism of the bureaucratic apparatus and the policy of boiled frogs. All of which applies to public radio and television, and especially to programs on the third channel of television and radio, as much as to publishing or the audio-visual center.
The structural cynicism of this latest decision, which reduced Novosti's budget by exactly 210 thousand euros, with the euphoric approval of the right wing, lies in the fact that it was formally implemented and voted on by the Council for National Minorities, headed by Tibor Varga, which only confirmed once again that the delusion of those who are not currently under attack from the majority, that the logic of majority nationalism will bypass them, will last forever and everywhere. And that ancient wisdom of the Protestant priest about remaining silent while others suffered is of no help here.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks about the editorial policy of Novosti or the authors of that weekly, which in any case represents one of the best quality media projects in Croatia. The problem is essentially in the narrative that the right wing has managed to sell to the majority of society, that Serbs and their media outlets have nothing to do with true journalism and the state of society as a whole, but are reserved exclusively for folklore and minority topics. And while that is the prevailing opinion in society, and it is, then the same minority of whiners and those who are treated as national traitors will always react to this type of decision, and everything will calm down after a few days.
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