Thanks to the report of the Ombudswoman, we have finally learned which 40 articles the Council for National Minorities “deemed impermissible” and, on that basis, cut one-third of Novosti’s funding for 2025. As many as 37 of them are columns by Viktor Ivančić, almost all he published in Novosti in 2024, while one article is by Ivica Đikić and two by Hrvoje Šimičević.
Last year, the Council for National Minorities cut one-third of the budget of the weekly Novosti because we warned about the denial of Ustaša crimes in Jasenovac, wrote about Željka Markić, and criticized the government of Andrej Plenković. The Council made this decision outside its own funding rules and in line with the wishes of the Homeland Movement, a party that conditioned its coalition with the Croatian Democratic Union on financially strangling Novosti.
This was demonstrated by an investigation conducted by Ombudswoman Tena Šimonović Einwalter, who concluded that, in its annual funding call, the Council placed Novosti “in an unequal position compared to other (minority) media” with the aim of exerting pressure on its “editorial policy and critical journalism.”
The Ombudswoman’s extensive report, the result of a year-long investigation, provides a detailed chronology of the entire case, showing that the blow to the weekly was carried out through “particularly problematic procedural violations” contrary to the Council’s own internal documents. A key figure in the operation was Tibor Varga, president of the Council and its expert service. Following such findings, his dismissal should be inevitable. If he remains in this position, it will mean that the most important institution for protecting minority rights in Croatia is led by a person found to have worked to undermine them.
The Ombudswoman also noted that, prior to last year’s call, it had been publicly reported that the Homeland Movement had received assurances from the HDZ that funding for Novosti would be reduced by between 30 and 40 percent, i.e. that it would be set at €400,000. Instead of the requested €610,000, Novosti was indeed awarded €400,000. All other minority media outlets received increased funding. The same scenario was repeated in this year’s call.
In response to the Ombudswoman’s inquiries, Varga denied any political influence on the Council’s work, claiming that they “do not participate in day-to-day political discourse.” As the actual reason for reducing Novosti’s funding, he cited that the Council “co-finances programs of cultural autonomy, not daily political discourse,” adding that “political content is not acceptable within the Council’s funding system.”
This repeated last year’s justification. After the call, Varga stated that Novosti had “influenced political developments in the Republic of Croatia” and that the Council could not subsidize political or ideological topics.
Novosti was the only minority media outlet whose content was analyzed during the evaluation process. Judging by the content of the “disputed articles,” the Council objected to the fact that we warned about the denial of Ustaša crimes in Jasenovac, wrote about Željka Markić and attacks on the rights of women and sexual and ethnic minorities, and criticized Andrej Plenković and Aleksandar Vučić.
However, analyzing the funding rules, the Ombudswoman reached the opposite conclusion. She noted that “political content is not defined as unacceptable” in the criteria and that such content had regularly been funded since Novosti began applying to the Council’s calls. Moreover, the criteria explicitly state that the Council finances the promotion of constitutional values, which is unquestionably a political category.
So how did the Council cut one-third of Novosti’s budget if political content is not prohibited? The report shows that the ban on “sports, recreational, ideological, political and religious programs” was inserted into a separate document—the application Guidelines. The Ombudswoman described these Guidelines as “an informative document intended to inform potential applicants of the conditions set out in the Criteria.”
The Guidelines should therefore mirror the Criteria, but by banning political content they became their exact opposite. It is important to stress that the Criteria were adopted by the Council’s executive body, composed of all minority MPs in Parliament and respected public figures chosen by minority communities. The Guidelines, however, were introduced by Council president Tibor Varga, who then imposed them as the key benchmark in the funding process.
After the real criteria were undermined by these invented rules, the procedure was further manipulated to the detriment of Novosti. The Ombudswoman noted that “it is evident that other minority publications co-financed by the Council also contain political content and do not deal exclusively with national minorities, but also address society, the state and the world in which they live.”
She further revealed that, despite this, Novosti was literally the only minority media outlet whose content was analyzed during the evaluation process. “The expert service of the Council for National Minorities only subsequently reviewed other minority publications,” she stated, adding that this placed Novosti “in an unequal position compared to other media.” This was confirmed through her communication with Varga.
“We can state with certainty that titles and articles such as those published in Novosti were not found in any other minority media outlet co-financed in 2024,” the head of the Council responded to her inquiry. This makes it clear that “politics” was not a universal exclusion criterion. It turns out that the only problem was the kind of “politics” practiced by Novosti.
“It can be concluded that the criterion used to reduce Novosti’s funding was not (any) political content, but precisely the type of content and tone for which Novosti is criticized and for which there have been demands to deny it funding,” the Ombudswoman assessed. She therefore concluded that the outcome of the funding process “resulted from a procedure not based on the prescribed criteria, but on a predetermined conclusion about the outcome itself.”
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