Sawt Falasteen - Czech govt draws ire with public media financing plan

Opponents argue the bill, due to take effect in 2027, would harm the independence of Czech TV and Czech Radio and make them vulnerable to influence by the government of billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis.

More than 200,000 people rallied against Babis's government in Prague in March, with the media bill among their grudges.

"Our proposal cancels the outdated system of TV and radio licence fees," Culture Minister Oto Klempir told reporters.

Klempir, a former rapper from the small rightwing eurosceptic Motorists party, insisted the new law had protections preventing politicians from meddling with the public media programme.

Klempir said that, while the two outlets' budget would shrink between 2026 and 2027, the sum would annually be indexed to inflation, up to five percent, to "guarantee absolute independence".

The bill must now be approved by the cabinet and both chambers of parliament before being signed into law by the president to take effect on January 1, 2027, as planned.

Babis's three-party nationalist government vowed to cancel the licence fees when it took office last December.

Critics have accused Babis of trying to restrict media's independence in a similar fashion as his allies, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Viktor Orban, Hungary's outgoing premier who lost weekend elections.

"The government... is slowly but surely wiping out public media," Martin Kupka, head of the rightwing opposition Civic Democrats, said on X.

Pavol Szalai, head of the Prague office of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) watchdog, told AFP financing from the state budget threatened to "weaken the independence of the two outlets".

"We do not think the pledge to index the payment by up to five percent is a sufficient guarantee," he added.

Earlier this year, RSF spoke out against "any transition to state budget funding without equivalent safeguards and political consensus between government and opposition".

Coalition lawmakers will also submit a proposal to exempt Czechs aged up to 26 and over 75 as well as companies from paying the licence fees before the media law takes effect.

"It's a chaos which the government presents as a strategy," said Szalai.

R.AbuNasser--SF-PST