It’s about 86 cents: Saxony-Anhalt blocked the planned increase in the broadcasting fee at the turn of the year. It doesn’t work that way, says Karlsruhe. The decision has consequences for consumers.
Karlsruhe – The Federal Constitutional Court has provisionally put the increase in the broadcasting fee blocked by Saxony-Anhalt into force.
According to the information provided by the Karlsruhe court, the state had violated the freedom of broadcasting guaranteed in the Basic Law because it had not consented to the agreed state treaty. Until there is a new regulation, Article 1 of the original regulation applies retrospectively since July 20, according to the decision of the Constitutional Court. The license fee increases by 86 cents per month to 18.36 euros. (Az. 1 BvR 2756/20 et al.)
For public broadcasters, the radio license fee is the main source of income. It has been charged per apartment since 2013 and was most recently 17.50 euros per month. At the turn of the year it should have risen to 18.36 euros. The independent commission KEF has determined the demand. It would have been the first increase since 2009.
A financial gap of 1.5 billion euros should be closed between 2021 and 2024. In order for the negotiated state treaty to come into force, however, the approval of Saxony-Anhalt is missing.
The state’s prime minister, Reiner Haseloff of the CDU, withdrew the draft law on December 8th before the vote in the state parliament because it became apparent that his party – unlike the coalition partners SPD and Greens – would not support the increase. And the head of government did not want to make common cause with the AfD, which is known as a critic of public service broadcasting. But because all 16 state parliaments have to agree, the increase is blocked.
In times of “increased complex information volume on the one hand and one-sided presentations, filter bubbles, fake news, deep fakes on the other hand” the importance of contribution-financed public broadcasting is growing, the First Senate decided with the resolution of July 20, which has now been published. The broadcasters should present reality in an undistorted manner through “authentic, carefully researched information that distinguishes facts and opinions” and not focus on the sensational.
The legislature is responsible that the financial requirements for the tasks are given. “If a country does not fulfill its co-warranty obligation and this makes it impossible to fulfill the fundamental right to finance, this already constitutes a violation of the freedom of broadcasting.”
The Federal Constitutional Court can determine who executes its decisions. According to the Federal Constitutional Court Act, it can also regulate the manner of enforcement in individual cases.
The broadcasters ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio saw their freedom of broadcasting as violated and sued in Karlsruhe. The highest constitutional judges in Germany rejected urgent motions shortly before Christmas because they were not justified well enough. Her constitutional complaints were also “neither obviously inadmissible nor obviously unfounded,” the court said at the time. However, there was no reason to intervene immediately. dpa
