Commission for National Communities endorses media bill
Ljubljana, 25 February - The parliamentary Commission for National Communities unanimously endorsed on Tuesday the part of the new media bill that concerns the Italian and Hungarian ethnic minorities in Slovenia. The bill is being debated by parliamentary bodies after it passed first reading at a plenary on 4 February.
The commission proposed to the government to provide more budgetary funds for the digital content of the ethnic minorities' media outlets.
The commission also tasked the government with examining possibilities to change the status of the Hungarian minority's only print media, the weekly Nepujsag.
Hungarian minority MP Ferenc Horvath, who also chairs the commission, said the Culture Ministry, which is in charge of media policy, should find a solution for the weekly, which is published by the Institute for Information Activity of the Hungarian Minority in Lendava.
The institute was launched around 30 years ago, while its status has not yet been adequately addressed. "This has nothing to do with financial resources," he said.
Italian minority MP Felice Ziza had no qualms about the media bill, but expects further debate when changes to the RTV Slovenija Act are on the table, primarily because of the funding of TV and radio programmes for the Italian minority.
Outlining the media bill to the commission, Blaž Mazi from the Culture Ministry said that it aimed at making media ownership and financing transparent.
It brings a new procedure to assess media concentration, new forms of financial aid, better protection of editorial autonomy and mandatory labelling of content generated with the help of AI.
David Runco and Jozsef Vegi, representing the Italian and Hungarian minority programmes at RTV Slovenija, told the commission they had no second thoughts about the bill.
A similar view was presented by the representatives of both minorities who were invited to attend the session.