State television is coming

Slovakia dissolves public broadcaster

There were large demonstrations against the dissolution in Bratislava.

(Bild: AFP/VLADIMIR SIMICEK)

Slovakia's former public broadcaster has been formally dissolved and replaced by a new state-owned medium. The opposition parties immediately announced a complaint to the Constitutional Court against the law. The accusation: the creation of a propaganda medium.

It was only on Sunday that President Peter Pellegrini signed the STVR law passed by the left-wing nationalist governing majority in parliament. It was then hastily published in the official collection of laws just before midnight. This fulfilled the last-minute requirement for it to come into force on Monday as planned.

Interim head appointed
The previous broadcaster RTVS thus formally ceased to exist and the new broadcaster STVR commenced operations. The public did not notice much of this. All news was broadcast as before with the RTVS logo in the picture, and the RTVS website also continued to operate at the usual address.

It was not until late Monday afternoon that the parliamentary vice president Peter Ziga, who was only provisionally responsible for the state media, announced the appointment of an STVR boss. Marketing expert Igor Slanina is to manage the company with limited powers until the end of September as long as there is no officially elected head of STVR. A council to be appointed by the government and parliament is to choose the head.

Dissolution instead of dismissal
The nationalist Culture Minister Martina Simkovicova and the left-wing populist Prime Minister Robert Fico had repeatedly criticized RTVS reporting as being biased against them. However, they were unable to remove the Director General Lubos Machaj and his team, who had been elected by a previous parliamentary majority until 2027, due to the existing legal situation. The formal dissolution of RTVS removes this obstacle.