Press Release: State aid: Commission endorses financial restructuring plan for Portuguese public broadcaster RTP

The European Commission has decided that the financial restructuring agreement signed between the Portuguese Government and the public service broadcaster RTP in September 2003 is in line with EC Treaty state aid rules. This agreement, which runs until 2019, is aimed at progressively reducing RTP’s debt of about €1 billion. After an investigation, the Commission concluded that this debt is almost entirely due to the constant under financing of RTP’s public service tasks in the past and that the financial support now given by the state is proportional to RTP’s public financing deficit.