Croatian Daily Vjesnik Goes Bankrupt

Vijesnik HQ in Zagreb | Photo by: Denis Turcinovic

Croatian state-owned daily Vjesnik will go into bankruptcy proceedings due to its large debts and losses, the government announced on Tuesday.

"Bearing in mind the debt and the revenue Vjesnik achieves, the management should have declared the company bankrupt a long time ago," deputy prime minister Radimir Cacic said. "For political reasons, tens of millions of kunas were spent on a newspaper which very few people buy."

Vjesnik was founded in 1940 by the antifascist movement led by Josip Broz Tito. It was one of the most influential dailies in communist Yugoslavia, sometimes achieving a circulation of around 100,000 copies a day.

The paper now has about one hundred full time employees and a circulation of no more than five thousand copies. Its decline began after nationalists took power in elections in 1990 and it has been in financial crisis for several years.

Vjesnik is estimated to receive about 35 million kuna (5 million euros) a year from the state budget.

Its state ownership meant it was heavily influenced by its political masters and many Croatians found it insufficiently objective and professional.

Two Croatian journalists' associations called on the government to fund Vjesnik for a further six months so that the newspaper could be rebranded and made more professional.

Jadranka Kosor, leader of the opposition Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), said closing a newspaper with such a long tradition was not a good move. She suggested funding could be found in the budget to keep it going.

The Culture Ministry said the bankruptcy "does not mean the newspaper will disappear" but did not elaborate.

Several Croatian intellectuals called in Wednesday's edition of Vjesnik for government to keep the newspaper open, saying it was a Croatian cultural institution.