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The fight for the radio license does not end, an agreement between the parties to the dispute in Saxony-Anhalt seems more distant than ever. After several maneuvers, hooks and postponements by those involved in recent days, the media commission responsible for the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament announced on Wednesday that it was postponing its deliberations on the controversial increase until next week.
It is difficult to assume that the divided members of the black-red-green coalition in Magdeburg will find a tough solution by then; Therefore, the financing of public television from the 2021 tariff period is on the brink. How could this happen? And what follows from that?
It was an escalation with an advertisement. Already in March of this year, the Prime Ministers decided to increase the transmission fee from € 17.50 to € 18.36 for the next contribution period. The basis for the decision was a recommendation from the commission to determine the financial needs of issuers (KEF).
Criticisms also from the bourgeois camp
It was clear that the implementation of the plans would be accompanied by heated public debate. Even before the prime minister’s decision, an ever-widening front against public broadcasting had formed, stretching from right-wing AfD populists, whose members decried ARD and ZDF as “state radio,” to delving deeper into parts of the bourgeois countryside.
But the fundamental criticism of ARD and ZDF soon mixed in the tense mood of Corona’s first weeks, and this, which is often forgotten today, was not only taken up by the right wing in the eastern federal states of Germany, but also by the CDU members of the Bundestag. Berlin: In early May, union members such as CDU Vice President Silvia Breher demanded in a protest note that television companies stand in solidarity with taxpayers suffering from livelihood concerns. That is why they should redouble their austerity efforts.
Corona was and is, like so many other social processes, the driving force behind the division in terms of transmission rates, which today seems almost insurmountable. But the central figures in the dispute failed to lead the conflict with a view to the pandemic and the associated hardening; instead, they tried to end the misery with a political deal.
Political negotiation?
CDU Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff, who has always been considered one of the harshest critics of public service broadcasting and was fond of persuading it to save in a popular or populist way, referring to the high salaries of directors, He called on ARD and ZDF, one of many community stations in his concern to settle a previously disadvantaged federal state. Much of the ARD wanted to meet the demand.
This could be read as a concession to the powerful sovereign, who would have had political influence on the budget of public broadcasters. A process that will be prevented precisely by the fact that the independent auditors of the KEF give their assessment of the canon of the radio license.
At the same time, Tom Buhrow, director of WDR and current president of ARD, made it unequivocally clear that the culture platform would only come if the radio license fee was also increased, as otherwise the expensive undertaking would not be manageable.
But what happens now if the Saxony-Anhalt media committee cannot agree on a compromise proposal next week, despite all the pathetic attempts to agree, so the increase would otherwise be produced at all political levels can not be enforced on January 1? Then ARD and ZDF would probably call the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) to sue for equipment based on needs.
It would not be the first time. In 2005, the broadcasters moved to Karlsruhe once, but to successfully override the transmission rates determined by KEF because they were perceived as too low.
For the contribution period from 2021 to 2024, the KEF had estimated a total of € 38.7 billion for all public broadcasters and therefore recognized an additional requirement of € 1.5 billion. If (BVerfG) is called back, it could be years before a trial is reached. Institutions would have to borrow or slash their costs.
Either way, ARD and ZDF face considerable legitimation problems. The fact that the increase in broadcasting was enforced in the courts at the possible height of the crown crisis, above all reinforced all the criticisms, for whom the public service already seems disconnected from the reality of the people. The united front against the institutions would expand even more.
The way the dispute has been conducted so far has only produced losers.
