In a letter sent on Tuesday 31 August to the President of the European Commission and the Presidents of the EU Council and the European Parliament, the Slovenian news agency STA called on the EU institutions to “support [its] renewed appeal to the Government” to release funding owed to the agency.
“We are at day 243 of not having received any state funding, despite this being required by not one but two laws, the act on the STA and the 7th corona relief act”, write the journalists’ representatives and the Slovenian agency’s works council.
“Without a clear solution in sight, the remaining 87-strong staff will be put on the dole”, they say, adding that they will only be able to pay August salaries, “before we face insolvency as early as the beginning of October”. The signatories also point out that they have been forced to resort to solutions such as crowdfunding and the sale of debts to the State in order to survive.
The European Parliament was informed of the situation in March, during hearings on press freedom in Slovenia (see EUROPE 12687/1).
The issue was also discussed in Ljubljana in July, at the launch of the Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council (see EUROPE 12753/3).
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hoped, at the time, that a quick solution would be found to unblock the funding. The Slovenian Prime Minister, Janez Janša, replied that it was a problem concerning documentation, and that the funds could be paid out once it had been received.
The signatories of the letter accuse the government of “making up an endless stream of new conditions that it says we should satisfy to sign a public service agreement with them”.
The case has been referred to the Slovenian courts, but the agency assures us that a legal victory would be of no help if it were to be achieved in several months.
To view the letter: https://bit.ly/38z0Ttb (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)