EU &US criticise Montenegro over state TV boss ouster

Andrijana Kadija, who was at the RTCG’s helm for two years, was officially fired because the Council found that an agreement with the Centre for Civil Education was “illegal and interfered with the editorial policy.”

She was reportedly submitted to pressure for several months before she was removed from the office on Thursday.

The US said it was “disappointed” with Kadija’s ouster and added the decision “undermined reforms of the freedom of media, a key element for Montenegro's integration into the Euro-Atlantic community.”

“Montenegro has to do more to protect the freedom of media and the editorial independence of its public service," Heder Nauert, the US State Department spokesperson, said in a statement.

The EU said that Kadija’s ouster was “against both the freedom of expression and media which are the block’s basic values and a crucial element of the Montenegrin accession process."

"It is also an important provisional norm that should be respected during negotiations on the rule of law of the Chapter 23," the EU statement added.

The RTCG director Vladan Micunovic said that Kadija’s dismissal “opens a road for Montenegro's TV to go back under political control.”

Kadija also believes she has been replaced because she “did not allow (the TV to become) a political service” and said she was leaving the post with positive business’ results.

Montenegro’s Government said it did not have “any constitutional rights regarding the managing and editorial policies of the RTCG”, and that it worked “on a systematised solutions that will guarantee a true independence and the highest professional level of the public service, but also a sustainability of all media and the plurality of their expressions.”