The coffee table is set up in a discreet corner of the gigantic lobby of the Slovak public radio station RTVS, an impressive inverted pyramid built during the communist era in the heart of Bratislava. A simple candle, a red rose and a white ribbon with the inscription “last goodbyes”. “Let’s wear this ribbon to support RTVS as we know it »explains the message hanging on this small improvised altar to the lost independence of Slovak Radio and Television.
“We’re not very optimistic, are we?”says Kristina Chrenkova, 35, a reporter for ten years in the international affairs department. “We have tried to do something, but we must recognize that the fate of our institution is now irreversible.”regrets with a sad air this tall brunette with glasses. Wednesday, June 26, there are in fact only a few days left before the reform of the Slovak public audiovisual sector, just adopted at a fast pace by the national-populist majority of Prime Minister Robert Fico, comes into force, Monday, June 1is July.
The current director, who will be dismissed immediately, is already packing his bags. His replacement will be appointed by a new committee led by the government. Mme Chrenkova, who keeps in a corner of her office her cardboard signs proclaiming “Free media = happy country”vestiges of the demonstrations of recent weeks, does not have many illusions.
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“Several colleagues have already started to leave, but I don’t have a plan B.”worries this leader of the movement, who noted that certain members of the majority have already given the names of journalists that they dream of removing. “Even Orban didn’t move so quickly to Hungary. »
General purge atmosphere
Outside, the institutions of this Central European country which has 5.5 million inhabitants are indeed falling one after the other under the blows delivered at breakneck speed by those in power. In public but also private media, ministries, museums, justice and police, employees and troublesome civil servants are dismissed by the dozens, in an atmosphere of general purge which has profoundly transformed the country in just nine months.
Returning to power in October 2023, after spending three years in opposition and coming close to prison in a corruption case finally dismissed, Robert Fico, 59, a former communist who became a social democrat then a nationalist, is leading a vast policy of revenge against a whole section of his country’s elites, with the help of his coalition allies from the Slovak National Party (SNS), a pro-Russian and conspiracy-minded far-right party.
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