President Milanović on the Arrests: Those Are all People from the Circle of Late Mayor Bandić who Offered Brotherly Help to HDZ
“Everything comes back around eventually. I see that Yutel has also fallen. I don’t wish to prejudice anything, but this is evidently a chain. This of course takes place after the election so that DORH (State Attorney’s Office) and USKOK (Anti-Corruption Office) wouldn’t be doing their job before the election. I’m not saying that the individuals who were taken into custody are guilty, this will have to be proven. However, they are people who were part of late mayor Bandić’s circle who was given brotherly help by the HDZ party and their gang”, the President of the Republic Zoran Milanović said about the arrest of employees of the Zagreb city administration and Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT).
In answering reporters’ questions after attending the formal session of the Croatian Chamber of Trades and Crafts (HOK), the President gave his view on how public television HRT should operate after the arrest of its director: “The news and political programme should be cancelled. Daily, party politics as a form of service is not needed. Today, there are independent media, good ones and bad ones, there are printed media that are a fiscal racket, a debt collecting society, there are all kinds. In this sense there is no need for a public service, for Yutel, what this TV is. I’m not advocating cancelling the TV subscription for HRT because there is work that no one else will do except them, no one will do educational and heritage programmes. But I feel that the HRT as a public, actually a HDZ party service, when the issue is politics, should be relieved from this burden.”
Furthermore, the President warns that “according to what we see here we have people who are a business and financial cartel. Second, they are all so much connected by family and business ties that it’s not possible to watch”. Asked about further arrests, President Milanović said: “I’m not getting into this, I hope that HRT’s other business aspects are in compliance with the law. What is not in accordance with public morals is the relation of a public service to daily politics. Partiality is evident. It doesn’t have to be shut down, it’s an institution that has a history and legacy, technical equipment, knowledge and potential. But get the politics out of it”.
When a reporter commented that no public television has taken politics out of its programme, President Milanović replied: “Wrong, let’s be the first ones. When you’re paid by the Government, you’re dependent and people can’t resist”. Talking about private media, he said: “It’s not all the same who the owners are, but you work independently when you do a good job and when you do a bad job. That’s very important, journalism has to be independent, there must be media independence. When the state – the Prime Minister and the ruling party – are the owner – you’re not independent”.
The reporters asked whether there would be any arrests if Bandić were alive. “Would Bandić have been invited to lay a wreath at the Brezovica forest on behalf of the city of Zagreb? He would. Was Tomašević invited? He wasn’t”, the President of the Republic replied.
The reporters were interested in hearing President Milanović’s view on Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban’s advertising in the Croatian media inviting the EU to accept Serbia as a member. “Serbia has to meet conditions, they have to decide if they’re for the EU or Moscow. We’re not against Moscow, but you have to decide between Brussels or Moscow, and the current authorities in Serbia have a hard time accepting this and will have to be clear on this matter”, President Milanović said, adding that it’s “very bizarre that the Prime Minister of a small state publishes such a manifesto.”