KEY FACTS
- Under the draft law, the government would appoint six of the seven members of a new supervisory council, which would have the power to hire and fire RTV Slovenija’s director general.
- The mandates of the broadcaster’s current leadership, council, and financial committee would end the day the law takes effect.
- A referendum asks Slovenians whether to scrap the licence fee without offering a replacement, and the bill now before parliament carries no multiannual or index-linked guarantees.
- Separate amendments to the Media Act would leave state support for media content to the annual budget and end the multi-year grants that allow outlets to plan ahead and commit to investigative reporting.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- The Slovenian parliament should pause the legislative process, and ensure any reform of the public media framework has cross-party support and is developed with the broadcaster and in genuine consultation with media experts.
- The European Commission should assess the draft bill’s compatibility with the European Media Freedom Act and monitor developments closely.
- The European Parliament’s EMFA Working Group should make threats to public media in Slovenia a priority in its monitoring and consultative agenda.
On October 11, Slovenians will vote on a referendum on whether to abolish the licence fee that funds their public broadcaster. In addition, a draft law is moving forward that would give the government decisive influence over the body responsible for appointing the broadcaster’s management. The International Press Institute (IPI) and the undersigned partners of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) warn that both proposals risk breaching the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), and call on parliament to pause the legislative process.
Ahead of a consultative referendum on abolishing the mandatory contribution that finances RTV Slovenija (RTV SLO), our organisations stress that removing the existing funding model without a legally binding and adequately protected alternative could undermine the broadcaster’s financial stability and independence.
MFRR partners are also concerned about a separate draft bill published by the Ministry of Culture, which proposes amendments to the RTV Slovenija Act. The new coalition government led by the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) is proposing a major overhaul of the broadcaster’s organisational structure.
Our organisations have assessed the proposal and warn that it would concentrate decisive appointment powers within the broadcaster’s supervisory structure in the executive and risks increasing governmental influence over its management and editorial independence.
If passed, the bill would risk reversing progress made since the 2022 reform in strengthening safeguards for RTV SLO’s institutional independence.
MFRR partners also warn that, if approved in the current form, elements of the proposed reforms would be incompatible with EMFA Article 5, which requires Member States to guarantee the editorial and functional independence of public service media and establishes safeguards concerning the appointment and dismissal of their management and the adequacy, sustainability and predictability of their funding.
The undersigned organisations therefore call on the Slovenian parliament to pause the legislative process and to ensure that any changes to the country’s public media framework are subject to broad parliamentary scrutiny and are developed in cooperation with the public media institutions and their management.
Ahead of the referendum and pending parliamentary debate on the media reform bill, MFRR partners call on the European Commission to closely monitor the situation in Slovenia, including the potential impact of the proposed changes on the independence and sustainable financing of public service media under the EMFA.
The European Commission should assess the compatibility of the Ministry of Culture’s draft bill with the EMFA. The European Parliament’s EMFA Working Group should also make scrutiny of the proposed changes affecting public media in Slovenia a key priority in its monitoring and consultative agenda.
MFRR Analysis
Changes to RTV SLO’s governing structure
On August 26, the Ministry of Culture published draft amendments to the Law on RTV SLO — the first piece of media-related legislation since the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) returned to power in the 2026 elections.
The draft law would replace RTV SLO’s current four-member Management Board with a single director general, appointed for a four-year term through a public competition. It would also replace the current five-member Financial Committee with a seven-member Supervisory Council holding significantly expanded powers, including the appointment and dismissal of the director general. As a result, the government would appoint six of the seven members, and RTV SLO employees the seventh
Under the current law amended under the previous government in 2022, the 17-member RTV SLO Council is composed of six representatives elected by RTV SLO employees and eleven members appointed by a range of independent, public and civil-society institutions. Parliament has no appointment power which fulfills a key EMFA requirement for an independent selection process for the broadcaster’s management. Voters approved those reforms by 62.8% in a 2022 referendum.
As MFRR partners have previously assessed, the 2022 framework strengthened safeguards for RTV SLO’s institutional independence by dispersing appointment powers among employees and public and civil-society institutions, rather than concentrating them in political institutions. The European Commission has also noted positively the post-2022 appointment procedure and its contribution to strengthening RTV SLO’s independence.
The proposed overhaul risks reversing progress and creating serious concerns over its compatibility with the EMFA. Concentrating decisive appointment powers in a single political actor or political majority risks violating EMFA Article 5(2), which requires transparent and open procedures for the appointment and dismissal of public service media management, and requires those procedures to aim to guarantee the independence of public service media. Read together with Article 5(1), which requires public service media providers to be editorially and functionally independent, these safeguards are intended to protect public service media governance from political interference.
The amendments would also terminate the mandates of the current RTV SLO leadership, Council members, and Financial Committee immediately. The premature termination of the mandate of the current Management Board raises particularly serious concerns under Article 5(2), which provides that public service media management may be dismissed before the end of its term only exceptionally where it no longer fulfils the conditions required for the performance of its duties according to criteria laid down in advance at national level. Such decisions must be duly justified, subject to prior notification and include the possibility of judicial review. Automatic termination by legislation risks circumventing these safeguards against politically motivated premature dismissal. The termination of the mandates of the other governing bodies may also raise separate constitutional and rule-of-law concerns.
Changes to RTV SLO funding
In the same bill, the Ministry of Culture proposes removing statutory benchmarks for funding minority programming and music production, while retaining a general state obligation to finance those activities. The change would sever the link between funding for programme-content calls and programmes of special importance and 1% and 3%, respectively, of the annually collected RTV broadcasting fees, in both the RTV Act and the Media Act.
The proposals come as Slovenia prepares to hold the referendum on abolishing the mandatory RTV contribution.. MFRR partners warn that any changes to RTV SLO’s funding model must comply with Article 5(3) of the EMFA, which requires funding based on transparent and objective criteria laid down in advance, and adequate, sustainable and predictable financial resources.
The referendum frames the choice between scrapping or retaining the mandatory licence fee, without proposing an alternative model. Because it is consultative, the result is not legally binding. However, a strong yes vote would hand the government a mandate to act. The current licence fee model requires citizens to pay €14.02 per household per month.
A separate popular-initiative bill submitted to parliament by National Assembly Speaker Zoran Stevanović, whose party is allied with the ruling coalition, would replace the licence fee with direct state budget financing. It lacks sufficiently strong multiannual and index-linked guarantees, which could increase governmental discretion over RTV SLO’s resources. Parliamentary consideration is expected after the referendum.
Abolishing the licence fee in favour of direct state funding would remove an important buffer protecting RTV SLO’s financial independence.
Additional changes to the Media Act
In addition to the public media law, additional amendments to the Media Act have been proposed by the Ministry of Culture. If passed, the bill would remove or alter existing statutory funding parameters, change eligibility for certain applicants, and alter the conditions for digital media support.
It would no longer specify the amount of funding for media content support, leaving it to the annual state budget, which would give future governments greater discretion over making changes. The provision allowing state media funding to be granted for several years at a time, which lets media outlets plan ahead, hire staff and commit to investigative journalism, would be removed.
Civil society organisations with public interest status in the media field would also lose the possibility of co-financing. The amendments would remove the requirement that a digital outlet must have operated a subscription system for at least one year before a funding call, opening the scheme to fully free online media.
Wider eligibility can broaden access, but the requirement currently serves as an objective marker of established outlets with a proven relationship with their audience. Removing it without introducing other clear and transparent eligibility criteria could dilute the funding pool, leave allocation more to discretion, and — combined with annual budget-setting — increase governmental discretion in the distribution of state support.
The Ministry of Culture opened only a short two-week public consultation, largely during the summer holiday period, limiting the opportunity for proper feedback. Any debate on RTV SLO’s future financing and governance must include proper consultations with experts, journalists, and expert civil society organisations.
IPI and MFRR partner organisations remain available to meet the Slovenian authorities to discuss this situation in detail.
Signed:
International Press Institute (IPI)
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
Free Press Unlimited (FPU)
Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT)
This joint letter was coordinated by IPI as part of its work under the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries
