Fritz Pleitgen

In Germany, we are very interested in seeing Kosovo develop in a constructive and positive way. This feeling is also shared by the European Broadcasting Union as a whole.

The EBU is the professional association of all public service broadcasting organizations throughout Europe. Its Members have worked for more than 50 years to develop politically independent, unbiased and reliable broadcast media. They support each other in their daily work with top quality news networks, transmission infrastructures, coproductions, advice and financial help. In this framework they also initiated RTK’s operations in 1999. And we are glad to see what EBU and Kosovar professionals have achieved in such a short time: RTK has become the most accepted and trusted broadcasting station in Kosovo.

As far as we are able, we will continue to support this process for the good of all of Kosovo’s citizens. But of course the most decisive factor is always the efforts and perseverance of the people themselves.

We know what suffering you have had to endure: destruction, death and expulsion. We also know how difficult the process of normalization is after the experience of those years of horror. We hope our own history and experience will provide some guidance to you as you build your future.

In 1945, Germany too was liberated by external forces from dictatorship. One of the most important tools given to us after the Second World War to re-establish democracy was the public broadcasting system. The BBC served as our role model. Public television and radio broadcasting has proved its value time and again, and particularly in periods of crisis. It continues to make an essential contribution to the promotion and stability of democracy in our country.

The institution of public broadcasting must be independent from state and government. It is paid for by the public, by the citizens, and it is there to serve them alone. Representatives of all relevant social groups (trade unions, denominations, social associations, cultural institutions, members of the state parliament, sport associations) serve to monitor the public broadcasting system. It is an effective system of 'checks and balances'. Neither the president, the head of state nor any powerful party has the authority to decide what is or is not broadcast. Only the broadcaster decides on its programming – in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern public broadcasting.

The programming must be responsive to the interests and needs of all citizens in all sectors of society. This means both majorities and minorities. Public broadcasting is a communications platform for everyone. It must not be manipulated by one set of interests to the disadvantage of all others. Credibility is the key factor to its success, and independence is the prerequisite for credibility. Without independence and credibility, democracy cannot truly function.

A public broadcasting network must always be vigilant in its responsibility to the public it serves. Its purpose is to expose wrong-doing and negative developments. Naturally, the powers that be in government and society would prefer to have the public see only their good side, but that approach does not provide the complete picture and credibility that inspire confidence. People begin to lose their faith in the political system when they realize that  they are being misled. 

We have experienced a convincing example of this in our own country. Germany was divided for decades. In the western Federal Republic we had an independent broadcasting system. In the GDR in the east, the Communist system dictated what was and was not to be broadcast on television and radio. Technically, broadcast services from both east and west could be received in homes over vast areas of both countries.

The impact was clear to all. No one in the western Federal Republic was interested in the propaganda-laden programming from the GDR. And in the GDR almost everyone watched nothing but television broadcasting from the west.

The citizens in the east longed for our political system in the west, even though weaknesses in our system were subject to hefty criticism in some of our own programming. This was one decisive reason why the GDR collapsed. And neither the 500,000-strong heavily-armed Soviet troops, the national people’s army, nor the GDR’s own omniscient secret police could do anything about it.

Now one might argue that whatever a public broadcaster can achieve, a private broadcaster can do just as well. That is a misapprehension. Private broadcasters have to make money, and their schedule is guided by the bottom line. So they focus on stories that are popular and sensationalist in nature. It cannot afford sustained, wide-ranging and in-depth reporting for purely informational purposes. For this reason, commercial television can only serve to supplement public broadcasting, and the public benefits when there is competition for its attention.

Commercial interests, like political influence, can only imperil journalistic independence. This is even the case in the USA where powerful corporations are able to obstruct disagreeable television stories. However, since the USA enjoys a strong independent press (New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times to name just a few), such shortcomings in commercial television are easily absorbed by America’s general freedom of information and alternative media.

Of utmost importance to the quality of a public broadcaster are the skills and capabilities of its journalists, who must be educated and trained to do their job professionally and credibly. They must be neither arrogant nor intimidated but prepared to report news that may not please some interests.

Enlightenment also means dismantling prejudice, conveying the opinions of others and contributing to mutual understanding. I am well aware that this is particularly difficult in a country with a past such as yours. But without mutual understanding there is only stagnation. Without understanding there is no prosperity and no catching up with the rest of a united Europe. Journalists need to be independent – both on an intellectual and on a material level. It would be ominous for the entire mission if journalists assigned to a critical story also had to fear for their jobs.

You might be asking yourselves: who is the person telling us all this? I am a journalist by profession and have been working in broadcasting for 40 years now. As a young man I frequently took assignments as a special reporter and war reporter in Europe, the Near East and Middle East. At the end of the Cold War I was a correspondent in Moscow, working under conditions of semi-censorship. Later I reported from the GDR when Germany was still divided.

I have also worked as a correspondent in Washington. So I have seen both sides of the journalistic coin – both censorship and free reporting. Later, working as a reporter on the front line, I was able to observe and witness the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the entire socialist system. After that, I had a look around the crisis-ridden and war-torn regions from the Caucuses to Sarajevo, Israel and the Palestinian territories. To that extent I feel I can allow myself to make certain judgements as to the effects of broadcasting.

My greatest hope is that the RTK network is playing a valuable role in building up a democratic Kosovo and shall continue to do so in future. We from the EBU are prepared to assist you to that end. One example for this is the agreement which we have signed today. But that is merely the beginning.

Thank you very much for your kind attention!