The Ministry of Culture continues with cuts to media which might think differently.
Culture Minister Zlatko Hasanbegović confirmed that funds for the Italian language newspaper La Voce del Popolo have been cut in half, and announced that in the future the Ministry will stop funding it completely, reports Novi List on April 26, 2016.
“This item does not belong to the Ministry of Culture, since our ministry does not deal with the funding of minority associations. This was a special case, a relic of a contract from the time when Italian minority representative Furio Radin and then Prime Minister Ivo Sanader had some kind of a pre-election agreement. But, it is not our duty, and that is why this year we have approved half the funds, and in the future we will not fund it at all. The Ministry of Culture actually has nothing to do with this”, said the Minister.
Asked whether the state should find money for a newspaper in a minority language, Hasanbegović said: “Of course, the state should give its support, but every institution must also adjust to the market situation. Who asks other journalists how are they doing, and just look how many employees they have. It is not realistic that they survive, while other newspapers disappear.”
In preparing the draft budget for 2016, the Ministry of Culture highlighted the issue of providing funds for the newspaper, said the Ministry in a statement. Starting from 2004, the newspaper received 1.3 million kuna a year, and in 2015 it received two million kuna, announced the Ministry.
The Ministry of Culture believes that the financing of regular activities of the Edit publishing house which publishes the newspaper should be secured within a single budget allocation, through the Office for National Minorities, which is normally responsible for funding various programmes of national minorities.
In 2016, Edit will receive from the Culture Ministry funds in the amount of one million kuna. When drafting the budget for 2017, the Ministry of Culture will propose that the funds for the Edit publishing house should not be provided within the budget of the Culture Ministry.
