Director General Mr Rade Vojvodić

Radio Television of Montenegro

Mr Vojvodić,

With regard to the letter that you addressed to us on 4 February 2016, we must point out a couple of claims you stated, and which do not correspond to facts.

Firstly, organisers of the conference “Freedom of expression and accountability of Media”, the Parliament of Montenegro and the Council of Europe, extended the invitation to participate to all directors of all public broadcasters of the countries in the region, while you in your official letter state otherwise. We understand that you were not able to obtain that information from the Draft Agenda you received. Additionally, as a man with experience in organising events, we are sure you can differentiate between a draft agenda and the final version of it, which is finalised after receiving confirmations of participation from all invited participants.

We appreciate your desire to actively participate in creation and selection of speakers on this topic which is important for society and democracy, but at the same time we are certain that you respect the rights of organisers of the Conference to do that part of the activity themselves.

It remains unclear why you decided not to participate in the Conference due to “suitability” of the moderator, a person who is in charge, as the title says, of moderating the course of discussion. We will agree that the name of the moderator does not affect your views and opportunity to argue on the prearranged topic.

We thank you for wishing us a successful work of the Conference and we declare once more that you are welcome to attend, which the public would appreciate, and would also have the opportunity to observe views and opinions on topics of public interest, and RTCG as the service of all citizens primarily has the additional obligation to actively participate in exchange of opinions and dialogue.

As you replied to our invitation directly via media, a question arises whether the goal of the reply was to constructively contribute to the Conference which would gather prominent experts and media employees or maybe something else. We leave that for citizens to decide.

Cabinet of the President