CROATIA / Heading towards a governance crisis at HRT?

The political turmoil now familiar in Croatia since the fall of the coalition government on June 16^th, is not without consequences for the Croatian public broadcaster HRT.

As of September the company could be without a Director-General. The Parliamentary Media Committee has failed to agree a candidate to succeed Siniša Kovačić, the current DG, whose term expires on September 5^th.

The HRT Supervisory Board launched a 45-day call for applications which expired on June 13^th. During this time, the Parliamentary Commission was supposed to choose a candidate to run the company, a choice which would then have to be validated by the Croatian Parliament.

But since June 10^th quarrels between the political parties have dominated everything and the parliamentary committee failed to achieve a quorum because representatives of Parliament’s two main parties, the SDP (Social Democratic Party) and MOST (Reform Party), were absent.

A new call for applications will be launched soon by HRT’s Supervisory Board.

The dissolution of Croatia’s parliament, adopted on June 20^th, will take effect on July 15^th. If by then a candidate for HRT’s Director General has not been appointed, public broadcasting could find itself temporarily without a head until a new parliament is established after elections expected to be held between August 15^th and September 15^th.

Sources: Total Croatia News, Tportal, Le Monde