BHRT’s symbolic blank-screen broadcast on Thursday risks becoming permanent if its mountain of debt is not paid off by the end of this month.
Bosnia’s public broadcaster, BHRT, shut down programmes on Thursday and broadcast a black screen with warning messages highlighting that the station could go dark permanently if piled-up debts are not paid in two days.
If the debt to the European Broadcasting Union, EBU, of 22 million Bosnian marks – 11.5 million euros – plus interest is not paid by the end of this month, BHRT’s bank accounts will be blocked until the debt is paid fully.
This would mean not only the suspension of broadcasting and salary payments to employees, but also the potential collapse of the entire state communications infrastructure. The total debt has meanwhile risen to 100 million Bosnian marks, close to 51 million euros.
“Given that the EBU has not received any offer from the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina that would be satisfactory enough to enter into talks, we can expect them to initiate legal proceedings to resolve the issue of the frozen accounts. That will give us a bit more time while procedures are carried out, but that time could be a month or two, and after that it would definitively be the end of BHRT as we know it,” BHRT’s acting director-general, Belmin Karamehmedovic, said.
Despite a law which mandates every household in Bosnia to pay a monthly radio and television tax of about four euros, BHRT has been in a dire financial situation since 2015.
The tax collection falls in hands of the two entity’s public broadcasters, Federation’s entity FTV and Republika Srpska’s RTRS, which need to transfer half of the money to BHRT. But RTRS has not transferred any money since 2015.
BHRT has initiated several court proceedings, including lawsuits, against RTRS over the unpaid share of revenues from the RTV tax.
The District Commercial Court in Banja Luka, in reopened proceedings following a decision by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has delivered three first-instance rulings in favour of BHRT. But the proceedings have not been concluded by final judgments.
On November 27, during protests held in front of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and again on February 16, BHRT submitted proposals to resolve the situation to the parliament and the Council of Ministers.
The proposed measures include a loan of 100 million Bosnian marks with a guarantee from the Council of Ministers; allocating 25 million marks from surplus revenues of the Communications Regulatory Agency or from the current state budget reserve to urgently settle part of the outstanding obligations – and the immediate implementation of the legal provisions regulating the collection and distribution of the RTV tax.
Source: BalkanInsight
