"RTSH should be closed"/ MP: Public Television is not a government body that the Prime Minister should take over

2026-01-17 10:30:00, Aktualitet CNA

"RTSH should be closed"/ MP: Public Television is not a government

Prime Minister Edi Rama stated a day ago at a meeting of the Parliamentary Group that RTSH should be temporarily closed and returned to broadcasting when it is reformed.

This statement by the Prime Minister has sparked reactions in the opposition. MP Ina Zhupa stated that RTSH is not a government body that the Prime Minister should be involved in.

She made accusations, saying that it is the majority that has influenced the television's failure by interfering in appointments, plunging it into debt.

Ina Zhupa's statement:

Far from any modesty, I am one of the people who have waged the strongest public and institutional battles against the abyss into which the political decisions of the majority were leading the Albanian Public Radio and Television.

At a time when RTSH was being stolen, when employees were being fired, and when funds were being misused, the majority called these "reforms", with public stances, before the eyes of the public and institutions.

Take and read the 2021-May 2025 minutes of the Education and Public Media Committee, but also the public statements and battles, and you will remember the pathos of the majority for the successes of RTSH!

The fundamental question is this: when and why were the debts at RTSH and this situation that Rama is talking about today created?

The debts and problematic situation arose precisely from the political capture of RTSH, from the flagrant violation of the law on the Governing Council, and from the political appointments of directors, without any professional and legal standards.

If there is anyone who should apologize today, it is the socialist majority and the Prime Minister himself, without whose orders no one in this majority can even breathe. They captured the Governing Council with pseudo-opposition and political bargaining during the years of the opposition of the scoundrels and appointed director after director political people, incompetent and destructive of the public interest.

Let them apologize for the appointments of Thoma Gëllçi, Enkel Joti, Alfred Peza. For each of them, legal mechanisms were destroyed just to place the politically “right person” at the head of RTSH. The result was debt, corruption, and institutional degradation.

The government policy is to blame for handing over this institution to every thief and militant, instead of trusting it to professionals. They should not blame their political failure on public television and the hundreds of employees who have linked their lives and professional dignity to this institution.

The anti-RTSH discussion is deeply hypocritical and anti-European. To close the chapters of the negotiations with the European Union, sustainable financing of public media is required. Every EU member state has a functional public media, with several channels, with a cultural, informative and educational role. (A list is attached with a photo)

"RTSH should be closed"/ MP: Public Television is not a government

The European Union's progress reports have clearly requested that RTSH have: legal guarantees for editorial independence and mechanisms that avoid political influence in editorial decision-making.

Can RTSH be changed and reformed without funding?!

How can a dignified public service be provided without guaranteed income?! How can the prime minister come out and publicly scare every business that could serve as a sponsor of RTSH programs to withdraw because it risks being closed and everything being left in limbo?!

RTSH is a national asset, regulated by law, part of the monitoring of Albania's obligations on the path to the European Union.

The Prime Minister's discourse could serve the media oligarchs, by eliminating the national festival, the RTSH orchestra, the television rights for sports championships, cultural and health programs, the dedicated broadcast of the Albanian Parliament. It could also serve the construction oligarchs, interested in the coveted RTSH plot of land in the heart of Tirana, near the Prime Minister's Office.

But it cannot and will never be in the service of the Albanian public, nor in accordance with the European standards that this majority claims to follow.

RTSH needs less politics, more law and more responsibility. RTSH is not a government body to be taken over by the prime minister, but a national asset dependent on the parliament. An institution that certainly needs to undergo reforms, needs to increase accountability, needs to increase autonomous revenues, needs to increase the audience but in no case should it be closed!/ CNA