With or without the radio and TV license fee

Journalists, trade unionists and civil society representatives have held talks on the consequences of the cancellation of the radio and TV license fee as part of a public debate organized in Bucharest.

Leyla Cheamil, 08.11.2016, 13:40

Recently voted by Parliament and seen by many as a populist measure, the cancellation of the radio and TV license fee alongside 101 other taxes has generated heated reactions in Romania. Actually the law has been voted extremely fast both in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

Romanian cultural personalities, politicians, NGO representatives as well as media institutions from Romania and abroad have criticized the measure, which has raised lots of questions. Is it a good thing to cancel this fee or not? Have the consequences of this measure been considered? Which are the arguments to support the cancellation of this fee? Will the independence of the public radio and TV stations be affected?

A public debate was held in Bucharest to try to answer all these questions and to analyze possible effects and alternatives for keeping the radio and TV license fee in place. The participants in the debate have warned on the risk of political control of the two public institutions if they are exclusively financed from the state budget. By canceling this fee the direct link between citizen and public service will be severed, says Ioana Avădanei, the director of the Center for Independent Journalism. She also pointed out that the population would however continue to pay the fee, which will be included in the budget.

Ioana Avădanei: “The cancellation of the radio and TV license fee is a myth. Actually, the fee does not disappear. It will be incorporated in the state budget, which is made up of the citizens’ money. But the link will no longer be direct”.

In turn, academician Răzvan Theodorescu has criticized Parliament’s decision, claiming that the elimination of the radio and TV license fee is nothing but political vengeance. Răzvan Theodorescu: “I believe the Romanian President has to make the gesture of rejecting this absurd measure which might place the two public media corporations into a difficult situation.”

The presidents of the two public corporations are also opposed to the measure. The President Director General of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, Ovidiu Miculescu, has warned that the elimination of the fee is a threat to the very functioning of the two public services as of January 1, 2017.

In turn, the President Director General of the Romanian Television, Irina Radu, says that once the fee is eliminated as a source of funding, the public radio and TV corporations will no longer be able to carry out their activity under Law 41 which currently regulates their functioning and organization.

However, the draft law on the cancellation of the radio and TV license fee is still to be promulgated by President Klaus Iohannis. He has recently stated that many European media organizations, media trade unions as well as professional associations have called on him not to promulgate the law in its current form, because the two public media institutions risk being controlled politically if they are funded from the state budget.