Ministry calls on RTL to act responsibly towards government

(MTI) – The broadcaster RTL group should act responsibly and proportionately bear their share of the tax burden in Hungary, the economy ministry said on Friday.

RTL should refrain from besmirching the Hungarian government and scaring off investors to the country, the ministry said in a statement sent to MTI.

It charged that while RTL holds 40 percent of the Hungarian ads market the company had reported fictitious losses over several years and failed to contribute to Hungary’s operations in proportion to its profits, unlike most economic players.

The statement said that all this happens in a country in Central Europe which has not yet recovered from the economic disadvantages suffered “from the dictatorship foreign occupiers forced upon it for decades. It is unacceptable that after the Hungarian government had created a free media market for foreign investors, one of these companies regards the country as a colony, available for plundering,” the statement added.

An article published in the Financial Times on Thursday gave warning that RTL Group, Europe’s largest broadcaster, had cut its 2014 outlook as a new advertising tax was introduced in Hungary in the first half of the year.

RTL, which is controlled by German media group Bertelsmann, said “the precipitous introduction of the confiscatory advertising tax is an alarming signal for all international investors in Hungary”.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters