State – owned Romanian TV station TVR will pay around EUR 4 million in compensation salaries to the 635 employees who will be laid off in February, according to TVR's president and general manager, quoted by Mediafax.

TVR, which currently has a cumulative loss of some EUR 130 million and debts to the state budget of some EUR 65 million, needs to pay some EUR 1 million every month to the state budget to cover its debt. After the layoffs, TVR's 'financial pressure' will go down by some 30 percent, said Saftoiu.

The station will get an operational loan of some EUR 20 million to refinance debt and re-start TV production at the beginning of March.

Saftoiu, who decided to close down TVR Cultural in 2012, said the station plans to emphasize culture more this year though a partnership which will be announced at a later date. He also wants to turn the station's TVR 3 channel into a channel dedicated to rural Romania. Saftoiu's mandate at the helm of the TVR is to reorganize the company.

In November last year, TVR started restructuring its personnel, with a professional selection process as the first step. The selection included writing a job description, a test and an interview. However, some commentators say the selection was not a restructuring process, but rather a combing-out process.

As many as 2,562 employees took part in the selection, out of the 2,784 who were summoned. TVR currently has over 3,100 employees, but some were protected from the selection process: those on maternity leave, pregnant women, those who had just returned from the maternity leave, those who were on unpaid leave, and those whose work contracts ended in 2012.

Ada Mesesan, member of the TVR board, who voted against the layoffs, said the selection process was biased. “The clearest evidence: 695 appeals were submitted and even though it was admitted that errors were made in the evaluation – only 350 appeals were approved,” said Ada Mesesan, quoted by Mediafax.

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(photo source: Wikipedia)