Following the suspension of member services to Televiziunea Română (TVR), EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre and Legal Director Jane Vizard travelled to Bucharest on Friday 6 May to meet with the Romanian Government and Parliament as well as with the board of TVR.

Discussions took place with Finance Minister Anca Dragu, Chair of the Competition Council Dr Bogdan Chiritoiu and Senator George Severin, President of the Senate culture and media committee, about the situation of TVR and their membership of the EBU.

The decision to withdraw member services from TVR, including participation in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, was taken on April 22 after a deadline expired to settle the CHF16 million debt owed by TVR to the EBU.

Ingrid Deltenre said, “It is regrettable that an extreme measure was needed to draw the attention of Romanian authorities to the urgency of this situation.”

Anca Dragu added: “Taking into account the seriousness of the situation, we found it necessary to organize this meeting with all parties involved to find a solution in order to avoid new sanctions and I am speaking about the possibility of TVR being excluded from the EBU.”

During the meeting, the parties agreed that there were two issues: the outstanding debts of TVR towards the EBU and other parties as well as the more systemic problem of governance and lack of sustainable funding for TVR. It was agreed the latter, although requiring more time to be fixed, must be addressed as well in order to prevent a similar situation occurring in the future.

The EBU heard a new media law is currently being prepared and agreed to provide analysis of the draft law based on best practice within its Member countries.

Following a very constructive exchange of views, both the EBU and the Romanian government agreed on the analysis. Potential solutions were explored and further discussions will take place as soon as possible.