The Minister of Culture hopes that the next government will renew its intention to buy Lusa

The Minister of Culture hopes that the next government will renew its intention to buy the Lusa agency – a process that has been ongoing and has not been completed due to the current political context.

“It is known that recently the state was negotiating to take over almost the entire capital of the Lusa agency, and these negotiations were impossible, they were not completed for political reasons, this is due to the political context in which we live. “, said Pedro Adan e Silva at the entrance to the Council of Ministers, which will take place this Thursday at Porto City Hall.

Having received a manifesto from the journalists of the newspaper Jornal de Notícias (JN), which is facing collective dismissal, a government official explained that the intention of the current government is to increase compensation payments to the Luza agency in 2024 and thus achieve your free service for all media .

And he added: “The Lusa agency can be a very interesting and very relevant tool for supporting journalism and social communications.”

Capitalizing the Lusa agency would be a “more efficient and effective” way to support the media because it supports everyone, says Pedro Adán e Silva.

What the government is preparing will have a great impact on the media, especially the regional and local press, he emphasized.

“What I thought at the beginning of January was not possible because, as you know, we live in a very atypical political context and therefore there is a waiting period. I hope the next government takes up this idea. free from the Lusa agency,” he emphasized.

Last Thursday, the government announced that the state’s purchase of a 45.7% stake in the Lusa agency, owned by Global Media and Páginas Civilizados, had failed due to a “lack of broad political consensus.”

“At this time, in the absence of broad political consensus, the operation has proven to be unfeasible,” the Ministry of Culture said in a statement entitled “The State is not acquiring stakes in Lus.”

In almost four pages, the Ministry of Culture explained the entire process, starting in August with the “expression of shareholder interest” on the part of Global Notícias Media Group Páginas Civilizados in “the divestment of the shareholdings they own in Luz”, when the Minister of Culture “showed openness to begin negotiations so that the state can take a more significant position in the agency’s shareholder structure.

As the government takes office on Friday, the culture minister admitted he would like to do “a lot more things” during my term.

But despite everything, Pedro Adao e Silva recalled that in the reprogramming of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) he included 10 million euros for the digitization of television archives, worked on the capitalization of RTP and worked on the Lusa agency.