BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The Czech Republic wants to discuss the future of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty at a meeting of European Union ministers on Monday, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said after U.S. funding for the news service was cut.
“We have to start with the political readiness to do something, so I will ask for that today,” Lipavsky said before a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) over the weekend terminated grants to RFE/RL, which broadcasts to countries in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, including Russia, Belarus and Iran.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday aimed at gutting the parent of U.S. government-funded media outlet Voice of America and six other federal agencies, his administration’s latest step to shrink bureaucracy.
The Prague-based RFE/RL delivers news to 23 countries where free press is widely seen as being under threat. Its CEO, Stephen Capus, said on Saturday that its cancellation would be a “massive gift to America’s enemies”.
(Reporting by Lili Bayer, writing by Jason Hovet, editing by Andrew Gray and Timothy Heritage)
Comments