"It is absolutely untrue that upon his return from Brussels Prime Minister Ivo Sanader called the RTL managing board's chairman, let alone with the intention of interfering in the editorial policy of that media company," the government's public relations office said in a statement.
The government strongly believes that freedom of the media and speech is one of the pillars of democracy, reads the statement.
The RTL corporate communications department's director, Drenislav Zekic, too dismissed the daily's article.
Zekic told Hina that it was the RTL managing board's chairman who phoned Sanader to ask him for a brief interview.
According to the article, headlined "Negotiations with Croatia Only When Gotovina Appears in The Hague", Sanader even phoned RTL managers to express dissatisfaction with the station's coverage of the Brussels summit.