STA, 14 April 2020 - A contentious letter sent by the government to the Council of Europe (CoE) to claim that the majority of the main media in Slovenia stem from the Communist regime was defended by Foreign Minister Anže Logar in parliament on Tuesday, as the opposition described it as a piece of one-sided political propaganda.
The letter, debated today in a joint session by the parliamentary committees on foreign policy and culture, was a response to an alert issued by the CoE Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists after Prime Minister Janez Janša tweeted in late March that the public broadcaster RTV Slovenija was misleading the public, adding "apparently there are too many of you and you are paid too well".
Addressing the session, Foreign Policy Committee chair Matjaž Nemec said the letter, drawn up by the Government Communication Office (UKOM) and sent to the CoE by the Foreign Ministry, served as a settling of scores in domestic politics, and represented yet another attack on journalists.
Nemec, an MP for the opposition Social Democrats (SD), said the letter was a manipulating description of the Slovenian media landscape that failed to mention information that linked Janša's Democrats (SDS) with media under police investigation over suspicious financial flows from Hungary or fake news.
Nemec accused the government of sullying Slovenian media in the document, and Janša of exploiting the coronavirus epidemic for denigration and misinforming European institutions about the state of Slovenian media.
"The letter addressed to the Council of Europe represents a unilateral, politically-motivated and irresponsible conduct on the part of the government against the good name of the Republic of Slovenia, and instead of steps to protect the standards, freedom and independence of journalist work, it resumes the war against the media, and deepens tensions in society," said Nemec.
Logar denied that the letter was a dispatch in response to a statement by CoE Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović as claimed by the MPs requesting today's session. He said the government had not yet responded to that statement, and if it did, the response would be drawn by the UKOM.
The minister said that he was not involved in the compilation of the government's response, but had been acquainted with the wording before the letter was sent to Slovenia's standing mission to the CoE, which then referred it to the CoE Platform.
"Do I support the text? Do I agree with the content? What is it that doesn't hold true in what's written?" Logar challenged MPs. He also read the accompanying dispatch prepared and sent by the Foreign Ministry along with the government's response to the CoE.
The letter, accessible on the website of the CoE Platform, argues that "the majority of the main media in Slovenia have their origins in the former Communist regime, and even in the late 1990s the positions of editors-in-chief were held by the former members of the infamous security service UDBA".
Logar left the session after making his point due to other obligations, which upset the Culture Committee chair Violeta Tomić of the Left: "The minister spat on us, poured mud over us and then left."
In place of Logar, the Foreign Ministry was represented by State Secretary Tone Kajzer, but since the latter would not answer MP questions and would have nothing to add, the session was broken up to be resumed when Logar is available to attend.
The opposition demanded the government retract the contentious letter and replace it with a content that would not harm Slovenia's reputation. They moreover called on junior coalition partners to take responsibility and honour their promise the government would not be a one-man and one-party government.
The junior partners, the Modern Centre Party (SMC), Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) and New Slovenia (NSi), distanced themselves from the letter last week.
Opposition MPs today denounced the letter as abuse of power for party interests, an attack on democracy, independent journalism and freedom of expression. They also accused Logar of lying after he said last week he knew nothing about the letter.
Speaking on behalf of the SDS, MP Eva Irgl denied the opposition's accusations, arguing today's session was meant as an attack against the foreign minister and to settle scores with the SDS, government and prime minister.
While the Journalists' Association (DNS) denounced the letter last week, its smaller counterpart, the Association of Journalists and Commentators (ZNP), which brings together mostly journalists and commentators from right-leaning media, upheld the letter as accurate and pinpointing key problems of the Slovenian media space.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the ZNP argues that the main problem of Slovenian media is a lack of pluralism as most media more or less openly favour the political left.
"Fact is that even after the fall of the dictatorship, the political forces stemming from the previous Communist regime, along with their ideological supporters continue to control almost uninterruptedly the economic, judicial and media fields in the country, including public RTV Slovenija," reads the ZNP's response.
The ZNP says that the majority media under the control of the left have often been abused for the settling of scores with the centre-right political opponents. They see media bias coming to the fore again as the third Janez Janša government took over, asserting that the most radical of journalists from the dominant media controlled by the left openly agitate against the new government.
