A Civil Liberties Committee delegation is in Ljubljana to meet with journalists and press freedom organizations to assess the situation regarding media freedom in Slovenia. Statements by Marko Milosavljević, Faculty of Social Sciences - University of Ljubljana, Nataša Posel, Director of Amnesty International Slovenia, Petra Lesjak Tušek, President of the Slovenian Journalists’ Association, Lenart J. Kučić; Investigative journalist - Pod črto, Rok Čakš, journalist - Domovina.je and Jože Možina, investigative journalist - RTVSLO.

meeting

EP delegation

freedom of press and media (T)

EU mechanism on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights (T)

EU - Slovenia (T)

Slovenia

EP LIBE delegation to Slovenia, Ljubljana: meetings with journalists and press freedom organizations

European Parliament Liaison Office in Ljubljana

Meeting of the EP LIBE delegation with representatives of journalists and press freedom organizations

SOUNDBITE (English), Petra Lesjak Tu&#353;ek, President of the Slovenian Journalists&#8217; Association, We are quite concerned about media freedom in Slovenia. We are seeing the deterioration and we are facing the attacks, insults and threats every day as journalists. And we can see some other changes that are worrying us. That's why we think that these problems have to be discussed and some solutions have to be found.

SOUNDBITE (English), Rok &#268;ak&#353;, Journalist - Domovina.je, I don't think this is such a big problem on freedom of media, the more more problematic is the polarisation of the media landscape because we have predominantly strong, left sided media influence from this device from forty five years of communism and later on 30 years of democratisation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Rok Čak&scaron;, Journalist - Domovina.je, There is a predominantly strong and also capital strong media from one point of view, and we don't have the same competition, the equal chances to present different views on the media landscape.

SOUNDBITE (English), Nata&#353;a Posel, Director of Amnesty International Slovenia, We also have a deteriorating situation of freedom of media with our Slovenian national agency being not being funded for such an extended time and also with journalists, and  specially female journalists, being attacked online, also by high ranking politicians, including prime minister.

SOUNDBITE (English), Marko Milosavljevi&#263;, Faculty of Social Sciences - University of Ljubljana, We are now facing the situation where a Slovenian press agency has been left without funding for 10 months, and they are looking for a European attention. They are looking for a European help and we are all aware here that we need to fight our fight here for the freedom of speech. But in some circumstances, such as Slovenian press agency, the need and the help from European Union European Parliament is very much needed. 

SOUNDBITE (Slovenian), Jo&#382;e Mo&#382;ina, Investigative journalist - RTVSLO, I am a little afraid that basically such visits are just some necessary evil for a certain political agenda. I hope that the chairwoman and other members of the mission are really interested in the situation in Slovenia and who controls the Slovenian media space ...

SOUNDBITE (English), Lenart J. Ku&#269;i&#263;, Investigative journalist - Pod &#269;rto, What we see today is basically a symptom of a long lasting systemic anomalies that no government in history or previously didn't really want to address, to make better or to make better regulation, better security, better protection of journalist work, and mainly to limit itself on how the government can influence the media in Slovenia. 