On June 20, 2024, the death knell began to ring for Slovak public radio and television. Narodna rada, the parliament of the country of 5,5 million inhabitants, adopted the controversial law on the media, which entered into force on July 1, in an emergency procedure. 78 MPs out of a total of 150 raised their hand in favor of the new law on media - all representatives of the ruling nationalist-populist three-party coalition. The opposition boycotted the vote.
Slovak President Peter Pelegrini, a confidant of Prime Minister Robert Fico, marked the end of the process of shutting down public television RTVS and the start of the new state television STVR. With his signature on the law, the death knell rang and RTVS became STVR - Slovak Television and Radio.
Demonstrations against the law
However, the new law does not only introduce a new name for radio and television. "We fear that the new law has only one goal: to control what will be broadcast," RTVS journalist Sona Weissova told the German news agency KNA. The pressure of the Fitz government, he says, is not limited to the public media. This also affects private TV stations and newspapers, as well as cultural institutions.
"Today, the parliament definitely abolished free public media," criticized the head of the largest opposition party Progressive Slovakia, Mihal Šimečka. "From July 1, it was replaced by the docile and tamed STVR," he said. The German Association of Journalists (DJV) also expressed concern. "The dissolution of the public broadcaster is a serious violation of the basic values of the European Union," said DJV president Mika Bojšter. He called on the European Commission to initiate proceedings against Slovakia.
Anti-Slovak or just objective?
The media criticizing Fitz's policies has long been a thorn in the prime minister's side. He and his social democratic party Smer-SD follow an openly nationalist course. His three-party government also includes the ultra-right Slovak National Party (SNS). Fico and other members of the government use aggressive rhetoric. They say that RTVS was "anti-Slovak" and engaged in "illegal" activities, while it remained unclear what was meant by that.
At the same time, the public broadcaster in Slovakia has so far enjoyed a high rating from the population. Demoscopic Institute Median SK confirmed this in a representative survey just a few weeks ago. Among more than 2.000 surveyed Slovaks between the ages of 14 and 79, almost 30 percent rated RTVS as the most objective media in Slovakia. Private news channel TA3 is preferred by 17,6 percent of people, and private TV channel Markiza, which is also affected by censorship measures, by 16,6 percent.
A law that would get rid of the current director of television
The new media law is also a lever for the authorities to get rid of the current television director Luboš Machaj. He has been on the post of general director of RTVS since 2022, and his mandate is normally five years.
He should now be replaced by a successor to be appointed by the nine-member commission. It consists of four members of the government and five deputies, and here Fitz's coalition has a narrow majority. The new CEO should probably work under the direction of the government. This would not be possible without the abolition of RTVS.
"So far, nothing has been presented to substantiate the allegations of biased reporting," Machaj said. "The current government nomenclature started favoring alternative media a long time ago," he added. For example, as he says, the ministries were asked to boycott RTVS.
Protests without effect
Employees of RTVS and the public protested against the abolition of that house in vain in the past months. This spring, thousands of Slovaks took to the streets in many cities of the country in solidarity with their public television. Domestic and foreign journalistic associations, among them the European Broadcasting Union EBU, rebelled against the media law.
Katarina Weiss from Reporters Without Borders says the situation is getting worse. "Enemies of media freedom are becoming more vocal in Slovakia," she says.
Nationalist Member of Parliament Roman Michelko, the president of the Parliamentary Committee for Culture and Media, has already threatened to ban those journalists who are critical of the government. The new STVR management will decide who is allowed to work in that house in the future.
But the greatest enemy of media freedom is Robert Fico himself. He added fuel to the fire when he accused the media of being responsible for the attack on him: on May 15, 2024, he barely survived the assassination. RTVS journalist Vladimir Amirh rejects those accusations. He says it is absolutely irresponsible to accuse the media of such a thing. "There is no media, at least when it comes to traditional media, that called for political violence," he emphasizes.
Slovakia – a deeply divided country
Slovakia, a member of the European Union and NATO for 20 years, has become Europe's latest problem, and not only when it comes to media policy. At the beginning of the year, the government dissolved the special prosecutor's office for the fight against corruption. Now it's the media's turn.
"It is sad that, 35 years after the collapse of the borders between Eastern and Western Europe, politicians and oligarchs hold this country in their hands and decide the future of Slovakia," says Luboš Machaj, program director of the Slovak public service that will soon cease to exist.
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