Big changes coming to Croatian public broadcaster.
The Parliamentary Committee on Information and Media decided to dismiss Croatian Radio-Television (HRT) director Goran Radman. Seven MPs voted in favour while three abstained. Jasen Mesić (HDZ) proposed HRT journalist Siniša Kovačić as the new acting director. Radman’s dismissal and Kovačić’s appointment still have to be confirmed by the majority of the whole parliament, reports Večernji List on March 3, 2016.
The meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Information and Media this morning was first cancelled and then re-convened. The meeting started with a heated discussion about the agenda. Nenad Stazić (SDP) said that he hoped that MOST would not agree to a savage and violent dismissal of Radman.
“I think that we should have already discussed this issue, about two years ago when the HRT Supervisory Board first talked about the responsibility of Goran Radman”, said Jasen Mesić. “I know why Radman was defended so much, regardless of the fact that there were many irregularities for which he was responsible”, said Mesić.
Davor Bernardić (SDP) said that he regretted that the only topics which the new government was dealing with were “security services, police and the media”. “I am against executions without a trial”, said Bernardić and added that it seemed to him that the government wanted to “quickly bring public television under control”. “You should have invited Radman to come here”, said Bernardić. Committee chairman Andrija Mikulić (HDZ) said that the director was not invited to the meeting because they were discussing a proposal made by the HRT Supervisory Board and not by HRT director.
HSLS president Darinko Kosor said that HRT was transformed from public to state broadcaster in 2012, when the previous government changed the Law on HRT. Goran Richemberg (HNS) said that the decision to dismiss Radman had already been made earlier, and was now just being implemented. “MOST has promised it will not allow purges. The key is in your hands”, said Richemberg. Still, the outcome of the vote was quite obvious from the beginning.
