Fellowship Program
for Media Professionals and Media Experts in 2001/2002
LEGAL HARMONISATION OF THE MEDIA LAWS
IN SLOVENIA AND IN HUNGARY
A comparative study
By Judit Bayer, Press Freedom Center, Budapest
Introduction
The study aims to compare the media situation in Slovenia and Hungary, two EU accession countries. Both countries are relatively developed among the Central-Eastern European countries, and have a good chance to get access to the European Union in the first round. Therefore, they strive to finish the necessary harmonisation as soon as possible. However, Hungary is characterised in its past ten years by the struggle of different political forces, which find their field particularly in the media. Harmonisation to the European norms means – in the opinion of the writer of this study – not a simple change in the law, but the acceptation and application of democratic norms that are widely accepted in the European Member States. The study aims to highlight those points in the media field that might arouse questions from this aspect.
I would like to express my thanks to all those who helped my work by providing information, particularly in Slovenia, where I had to confine myself to the few English materials. Therefore the oral interviews meant an invaluable help for me. I am especially thankful for Brankica Petkovic, Sandra Basic Hrvatin, Simona Zatler, Sasha Ljubelj, and in addition to Peter Bajomi-Lazar, and Gabor Osvath, to whom the writing of this study was the most demanding.
1. Background
Slovenia has an elegant place in the range of EU accession countries. It has closed nearly all chapters with the European Union already, the country’s economic and political relationships are both stabile. Hungary also has a good chance to get in the first round, however, the political arena is rather fierce, and some experts express their concerns about continuous development, especially in the past years.
Therefore in regards of media law harmonisation the two countries are in entirely different positions.
In Slovenia a new law has been passed in place of its law of 1994. In Hungary the Parliament is about to have the necessary amendments accepted, but the bill fails again and again, because of the resistance of the opposition.
Therefore in my study I am going to concentrate rather on the differences and similarities of the situation in the media, and its legal environment, since Hungary does not have a harmonised media law yet. The other reason for this approach is that the real euro-conformity of the media does not solely depend on the law. The harmonisation on the technical level means only some changes to the law so as to take over the regulations of the European Television Without Frontiers Directive. This directive however does not cover the real problem areas of the democratisation of the media. It does not deal with media supervision, with independence, with financing, with the distribution of frequencies, and with anti-concentration rules, which are issues that should be rethought particularly in Hungary, but there are also signs of dissatisfaction in Slovenia, such as questioning the method of financing of public service television, and the unclear situation of ownership concentration.
The European harmonisation requires solely the adaptation to the rules of the Television Without Frontiers Directive. This rule is only about television, and the main areas it covers are jurisdiction, European works, advertising, protection of minors and vague expectations on the right of reply, thus, basically content requirements.
The harmonisation of these rules demands nothing else than the passing of some amendments to the existing laws. However, the complexity of the situation is apparent in both countries. Slovenia, instead of doing the mentioned simple amendments, drafted and passed a completely new law, which aroused loud public and professional debate, and which – according to certain experts – was unnecessary, and seems to have been made under pressure of time. On the other hand, in Hungary, the opposition’s reluctance to cooperate with the government in this issue is the signal of deep controversies in the media field, or to say it firmly, of the “second media war”.
I am not going to describe the history of the privatisation and democratic development of the media after the political changes in the two countries, since this can be learnt from several excellent studies.[1] I am going to review only the events of the past couple of years since 1999.
Why is there no media law harmonisation in Hungary?
Hungary expects to join the European Union in the first round, 2003-2004. Harmonising the media law was promised by the end of 1998. The Ministry has prepared the amending proposals to the current media law, but they are not passed by the Parliament, because of the lack of a political consensus. To explain this, I will need to highlight the situation in the Hungarian media in the past years.
The new right-wing government which got into power in 1998 declared soon after the elections that it strives to create a “media-balance”. The press in Hungary, just like in Slovenia and other countries in the region, is traditionally liberal. There is no widely accepted explanation for this feature, only some personal views. One possible explanation is, that the press is by genre critical, urges changes, and is therefore more close to the leftist values, than to the conservative ones.
On the other hand, some say that the particular reason of this phenomenon in the Central-Eastern European region is that conservative political views have not been represented in the previous decades, therefore the approach of the intellectuals has remained leftist, and with opening the society and economy it became liberal,[2] whereas the right-conservative political side could not build up a set of intellectual followers. This entails that the expression of the right-conservative political opinion is often rude, aggressive, and close to hate speech. For example in Slovenia editors of the short-living rightist newspaper Slovenec were appointed on an ideological basis. (Basic, 2001)
Another opinion is that the communist interest groups have retained their economic involvement in the press, and dominate it through their secretly kept influence, whereas the rightist groups lack the financial means to start papers[3]. The right-conservative newspapers – even if they are donated by the party, or by the government as in Hungary – have a low rate of readership, and produce losses.
A couple of months after the 1998 elections, the new government presented a plan to create a “media-balance”. State-owned companies started to publish advertisements in Napi Magyarország, whose incomes thus quadrupled within one year. Previously the state advertisements were published in the most popular daily, Népszabadság, while the number of copies of Napi Magyarország are far below even other dailies. The Prime Minister and the ministers gave interviews only to right-wing newspapers, placing them in advantageous position on the information market. The chief editors of the news departments of the public service television were changed in the same year. (Bajomi, p. 121-122) In October 2000 the government starts a weekly (Válasz) through a public fund (Public Fund for Environment- and Society-Friendly Development) which is subsidized from the central budget with 1,5 billion HUF. Its editor is the media policy advisor of the Prime Minister.
A paper linked to the Smallholders Party (FKgP), Kis Újság is subsidized by the Defence Ministry and the Environmental Ministry, without a public tender – both ministries are headed by ministers of FKgP.
Beyond the lex Pokol and lex Répássy that are extensively discussed in chapter Right of Reply, the government makes repeated efforts to restrict the press. In October 2000 the Ministry of Justice proposes introduction of “satisfaction by the press”, meaning that in case of infringement of personal rights the press is obliged to publish the statement of the infringed person and apologize. Torgyán József, president of FKgP urges more times to modify press legislation so that the “lying papers should be banned” (Bajomi 137-138.)
There is a controversy around the Presidium of the Board of Trustees of the public service radio of the public service Duna TV, and of the Hungarian News Agency. The Board of Trustees exercise ownership rights over the public foundations that own public service radio (and television) and the news agency. Both the government and the opposition should delegate equal number of members to the Board, and the four-year mandate of the members cannot be withdrawn. After the elections two smaller conservative parties did not reach the lower limit to get into the Parliament, but their delegates could keep their mandate. Therefore two other members had to be elected either on the governmental, or on the opposition’s side – depending on whether the parties which have no mandate in Parliament count as government or opposition. The Constitutional Court[4] declared that since they are not parts of the government, they should be regarded as opposition, so two more governmental members were elected, through which the majority of the right-conservative members grew to 2/3.[5]
In 1999 the Presidium of the Boards of the public service television (MTV) were to be elected by the Parliament. Both the governmental and the opposition’s sides should delegate equal number of members, and the Presidium should have at least eight members, but if any of the sides does not delegate members, it does not hinder forming the Presidium. The far-right Hungarian Truth and Life Party (MIÉP) having 13 seats in the Parliament insisted on having 2 delegates, just like the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), which has 135 seats. Together with the third opposition party, the liberal Alliance of Free Democrates (SZDSZ) the opposition parties delegated five delegates, instead of four. Therefore the Speaker of the Parliament (belonging to the governmental party) did not set the question on voting, and only the governmental members got elected.
So the Presidium has been operating since summer 2000 without members of the opposition, which means that the public service television is under the unrestricted control of the government. [6] The same game was repeated at the re-election of the Presidium of the public service radio, and of the national news agency.
The Court of (Company) Registration held that the Presidium was unlawful – but the Supreme Court approved it and ordered to have it registered. (Bajomi p. 124) The Constitutional Court decided (5:6) that it was better to have a half Presidium than none. The Chief Prosecutor held that it was unlawful, to which the Speaker replied that his opinion was “irrelevant” - the Chief Prosecutor resigned.
The problem of the Board of Trustee’s Presidium is the casus belli, why the opposition is now unwilling to cooperate in the EU harmonisation of the media law (which needs a qualified majority): it sets the condition that first the issue of the Presidium be settled with a compromise, and the government ignores this claim. The amendment has been set on voting many times, last time on the last day of the 1998-2002 Parliament, but it never got the necessary 2/3 majority.
The next event of the war was the distribution of frequencies for non-profit radios in 2000. The popular Tilos Rádió, - the first pirate radio – did not get its licence renewed, instead Pannon Rádió and another catholic radio got licences. The Data-protection Ombudsman declared in its opinion 166/A/2000 that the applications were not evaluated according to the tender’s prescription, instead ORTT decided by simple voting which radio should get the frequency and which not.
Pannon Rádió is linked to the far-right MIÉP, and after being fined by ORTT in November 2001 for inciting hatred, it was fined again with the possible maximum amount of fine in January 2002 for being linked to a political party. In February 2002 the Board summoned the radio to eliminate the ownership incompatibility.[7]
Some think that this frequency might have been granted to Pannon Radio in return for hindering the election of the opposition’s delegates in the Presidiums, but there is no evidence on this.
Although the Television Without Frontiers Directive does not contain rules of supervision of public service media, in a developed democracy it is evident that it should not be under state control, as well as that a radio should not be directly attached to any political party[8]. These are features that cannot be reformed simply by modifying the legal rules: it needs a step forward in the political culture.
The IFJ has warned that the media crisis, particularly the situation in the Presidium of the public service media threatens Hungary’s European negotiations[9]. According to the 2001 World Press Freedom Review, the European Eunion publicly voiced disagreement against some of the government’s methods.[10]
The Slovene Background
In Slovenia the political circumstances are much more peaceful than in Hungary. One is tempted to think that the stability may also be due to the fact that the right-conservative side has never got as much influence as to be able to induce changes, unlike in Hungary, where the colour of the government changed through each election, and all governments started in a new direction, ignoring the processes started by the previous one.
Politics seems not to be the primary question in the media issue in Slovenia. Instead, the country is struggling with an even smaller language territory, and smaller market. Also the unique ownership structure, in which para-state funds have kept stakes in the media raises questions.