Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,

I am delighted to be present in Pristina this evening on behalf of the European Broadcasting Union to celebrate the launch of RTK’s third and fourth channels. 

For those of you who do not know us, the EBU is the professional association of all the national public service broadcasters in Europe and beyond.  Based in Geneva, we provide a multitude of services to our Members – from operations to sports rights, from legal to technical advice, from lobbying to co-productions. 

RTK has a special place in the heart of the EBU. Indeed it was at the EBU’s initiative that RTK was founded, back in 1999 in the aftermath of the Kosovo War, under a Memorandum of Understanding with the OSCE.  We were in at the start. We support RTK and follow its progress with close attention.

Since last year, the EBU has been implementing a comprehensive Action Plan, co-financed by the European Commission, to strengthen public service broadcasting in the EU accession countries, which of course include Kosovo. RTK is a keen and active beneficiary, participant and collaborator – and we thank them for that.

Finally, of course, the EBU even organizes the Eurovision Song Contest ...an immensely popular event which RTK will be able to join just as soon as Kosovo achieves recognition by the United Nations. I hope that will be very soon.

But I am not here to talk about the EBU or the Song Contest. I am here to congratulate RTK most heartily on the launch of its third and fourth channels.  Only months after the launch of RTK 2, the channel in Serbian, this is another important step in the development of Kosovo’s public service broadcaster.  As was the very recent transition to full digital production. Congratulations also on that!

The BBC, the mother of all broadcasters, was founded in 1922. Its founder, John Reith (later Lord Reith) said the mission of the BBC was to “inform, educate and entertain”.  And those precepts are still valid for public service broadcasters 92 years later. There has been no reason to change them.

Information – news – has always been a cornerstone of public service broadcasting, and it remains so in the age of public service media.

It is therefore good and natural, in the digital age when news is available through social and other media 24 hours a day, that RTK should launch a channel dedicated solely to information and news: RTK 3. 

With this third channel, RTK is now in a position to serve the citizens of Kosovo – to inform the citizens of Kosovo - better than ever before. The EBU, which distributes and shares news pictures through its Eurovision fibre and satellite network 24 hours a day, wishes RTK 3 all success.

And with RTK 4 – dedicated to education, science and culture, documentaries and entertainment – RTK will also be educating and entertaining better than ever.  Genuine public service broadcasting for the Kosovo people that would not be provided by a commercial broadcaster.

Public service broadcasting is broadcasting which serves the public, not a particular ruling party or parliamentary faction, or any other special interest.  (Any politicians here, please take note!) 

Public service broadcasting is broadcasting with no commercial interest, other than the income it can generate by selling its programmes or from advertising – if it has to rely partly on income from adverts.

Public service broadcasting is broadcasting which uses money to make programmes, not programmes to make money. Broadcasting which serves citizens rather than advertisers.

Of course, the term public service broadcasting has become somewhat outmoded with the advent of the digital age, the arrival of the internet and the proliferation of social media of various forms.  So we should now talk of public service broadcasting but of public service media.

Just 18 months ago, the entire membership of the EBU unanimously adopted six core values of public service media: universality, independence, excellence, diversity, accountability and innovation. One of the most important of these – perhaps the most important – is independence, in particular editorial independence. Again: politicians please take note!

Now a word about money.

RTK manages a complex operation on a very small budget.  A “shoe-string budget”, as we would say in England.  A budget less than half that of RTCG, the public broadcaster of tiny Montenegro.

It would have been only too easy for Mentor Shala, RTK’s Director General, to abandon plans for RTK 3 and RTK 4 on financial grounds.  The EBU congratulates him – and RTK’s Board under Rrahman Pacarizi - on their determination and ambition in expanding RTK’s services in these circumstances. On stretching even further what is already an extremely tight budget. But we urge the Kosovo government and parliament to provide sufficient funding for RTK to resource all its channels adequately. The European Union recognizes the vital role of strong public service media in creating and sustaining truly democratic societies, and Kosovo’s citizens need a strong and adequately-funded RTK as the country prepares to join the EU family.

I should like to finish my remarks by returning briefly to a related issue raised by the EBU’s Director General as long ago as 2011, which is mentioned in law, and which remains unresolved.

The physical assets of RTK’s predecessor, Radio Television Pristina, urgently need to be assigned in a proper legal manner to RTK.  Only when this has happened will RTK have legal security and its managers the freedom to manage as efficiently as possible – and in suitable premises.

But this is an evening of celebration.  So let me close with renewed congratulations to RTK and everyone concerned on their new channels, and wish them every success!

Thank you.