Photo: RTL

How the government and CLT-UFA fooled the parliament.

Since January 1st this year, the new state contract between the state and CLT-UFA, the group behind RTL Luxembourg, has been in force. RTL can receive up to 15 million euros per year from the state to offset a deficit. How exactly RTL can be financed - after all, a private company is being commissioned by the state without a tender - is clarified in the contract, and also had to be voted on by the Chamber via a financing law.

It is a complicated matter. After all, RTL would have to show exactly how the ominous deficit would arise and therefore present an account that transparently lists all its activities. The members of the media committee of the Luxembourg parliament will be presented with the financial part of the contract for discussion at the meeting on September 21, 2021. The Minister of Media Xavier Bettel has excused himself, speaking for the government: Paul Konsbruck. A person who knows CLT-UFA best.

Paul Konsbruck was at the time the closest advisor and chief of staff of Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. Right at the beginning of Xavier Bettel’s first term as Prime Minister, Paul Konsbruck moved to the state as a communications advisor - from CLT-UFA. At the media group, he first worked for many years as a journalist for RTL Radio Luxembourg and then was editor-in-chief of Eldoradio, a subsidiary of CLT-UFA. In 2017, Xavier Bettel appointed Paul Konsbruck as „Government Commissioner“ within CLT-UFA. The fact that it is also Paul Konsbruck who not only presented the agreement between the state and CLT-UFA to the media commission, but also negotiated it, is not questioned by anyone.

There is no real discussion. Also, the media ministry only handed out the important papers to the deputies very shortly before the meeting and Paul Konsbruck avoids all important questions, for example how much revenue RTL receives from advertising. At the end of the meeting, the announcement: „Mr. Konsbruck informs that he will be leaving the civil service and that Ms. Anne-Catherine Ries will be the future government commissioner for CLT-UFA“. That Paul Konsbruck will leave his post and be placed in a management position in the economy, where he can earn a handsome salary until he retires at the age of just 40, has been known for months. Getting the agreement between the state and CLT-UFA in dry conditions is really his very last act, Paul Konsbrück practically arranges a deal between his two ex-employers. After that, he will find himself in a position where the bonds with both will be of great use to him.

Since Xavier Bettel excused himself for the meeting and Paul Konsbruck is no longer working for the government a week later, there is actually no government representative present at the absolutely most important moment in the parliamentary discussion on the RTL state contract. Was this done deliberately, because it was known that this was actually the most sensitive part of the convention up for discussion? Basically, the parliamentarians were being made fun of. They didn’t have the necessary information, no time for preparation and not even a real contact person in front of them, but an ex-CLT-UFA employee who wanted to bring the best possible but extremely shaky deal for CLT-UFA to a dry roof on his last day of work.