EU TO SUPPORT INDEPENDENT CROATIAN TELEVISION

( Editorial: --> 0834 ) ZAGREB, Feb 10 (Hina) - The European Commission this year will bolster financial aid to independent Croatian media. It will especially focus on the establishment of independent television for the whole of Croatia, European Commission special envoy in Croatia, Per Vinther, said at a round-table conference on financial aid for media in Zagreb on Tuesday. He added that the European Commission would also focus on the creation of an independent newspaper distribution network. Independent Croatian media received DM3 million of help last year and in 1998 the Commission set aside DM5 million for independent media which need not support the opposition, Vinther said. Secretary of the Helsinki Committee, Bozo Kovacevic, said progress had been achieved in the last several months in the Croatian Radio Television (HRT) news, where stances of the opposition had also been broadcast. Kovacevic also said that the HRT Council had, by adopting the most recent scheme orientation which stipulated that the HRT would advocate state interests, actually sided with the realisation of Croatian government policies. European Commission media representative Matthew Kidd said that the EU wanted a developed media sector in Croatia, not just media which presented government stances on the one side and those who express opposition views on the other. President of the association of representatives of electronic media "Forum 21", Damir Matkovic, said that possible positive changes at HRT were "only superficial", adding that the HRT was still the most powerful fortress for the promotion of state policy. He said that the present system of HRT supervision that automatically allowed the majority party in parliament to carry out the supervision should be changed, so that the HRT became a public medium which the Croatian public was allowed to supervise. (hina) lm jn 101712 MET feb 98