Croats refuse to pay TV licence fee, HRT says it is a legal obligation

It is untrue and tendentious, HRT claims, to call the TV licence fee an illegal extortion and robbery of citizens. These words were used to describe the HRT subscription by the initiators of an online petition demanding a ban on the TV licence fee, reports the Patria news agency.

-We emphasise that the claim is completely untrue and tendentious, since HRT as a public service collects the fee in accordance with the Law on HRT, which was passed by the Parliament, as the representative body of citizens and the holder of legislative power in the Republic of Croatia, HRT states. 

The authors of the petition, in a response sent from HRT to Index, were also told that their claim that "no one has the right to be forced to pay for something they do not want" does not stand.

In HRT's response, it is emphasised that "all citizens are obliged to settle their legally prescribed obligations, which are also the foundation of the functioning of any civilised society".

-Also, a high percentage of Croatian citizens regularly pay the TV licence fee and thus jointly finance the existence of the public broadcasting service, in the manner regulated in other European countries, whose public services are also financed through the TV licence fee, HRT states.