Presenting the final bill of amendments to the HRT Act in parliament, the minister said the government received a letter from the EC on June 28 but that the Culture Ministry was not authorised to make it public.
In the first part of the letter, the Commission says it is pleased with the changes to the bill made after its first reading in parliament which refer to the status of the HRT director general, the term of his/her appointment, and the scrapping of a provision whereby the director general could be relieved of duty if parliament did not adopt his/her annual report, said the minister.
The second part of the letter says there is no uniform practice in Europe regarding appointments in public broadcasters, she added.
She said the formulations in the letter were recommendations, "so I don't think the public was deluded."
She said the letter mentioned various ways of electing the director general, not only by two-thirds majority in parliament, and that after the first reading in parliament and a public discussion, some suggestions regarding the bill of amendments were accepted, including the one that applications be invited for editors-in-chief.
The final bill of amendments to the HRT Act also envisages that the acting HRT director general be appointed within eight days of its passage.
Parliament would elect the HRT director general, the directorate, the programming council and the supervisory board by qualified majority which, according to the government, meets the criteria of transparent and representative election.
The opposition's HDSSB and Labour Party earlier today asked in parliament that Zlatar Violic tender her resignation, saying she deluded members of parliament and the public yesterday by claiming that the government had accepted the EC's recommendations regarding the bill of amendments to the HRT Act and that the EC had greenlighted the passage of the bill.
Dinko Buric of the HDSSB said the ruling coalition was ignoring civil society by not allowing a broad public discussion on the bill and by rushing the parliamentary debate on it.
Branko Vuksic of the Labour Party said the HRT was too important a topic to be discussed in a rush and without a public discussion.
The strongest opposition party, the HDZ, also accused Zlatar Violic of deluding the public. Its MP Davor Stier said the EC had retained its recommendation that the HRT director general should be elected by two-thirds and not qualified majority in parliament to avoid political control of the national public broadcaster. He said the government did not include this recommendation in the bill.
Speaking to the press earlier today, Zlatar Violic said the EC letter contained the recommendation and not the demand that the bill be passed with the two-thirds majority of the ruling coalition.
She said the Constitution stipulated that amendments to the HRT Act were not adopted by two-thirds majority.