21. 03. 2013

MEDIA AS TRADE-IN

Belgrade, March 21, 2013 (Danas) - Media today are the pillars of democracy. Instead of pressuring the media, the state must rather focus on regulating the media sphere in line with the European standards. The state must now be an owner of media. The media need be privatized. These have been official stands of relevant and competent institutions in Serbia for years, but when all said needs to be put to practice, the situation gets "complicated".

When Media Strategy was adopted back in 2011, after long drafting of the document and several versions of the text, it seemed that the discussions on media would stop. The Strategy has seemingly resolved all disupted issues that just need to be regulated by laws. However, the Draft Law on Public Information and Media was the reason for public debating about many unsolved issues, privatization of media as the largest problem.

Although the state is ready to withdraw from ownership in media, the majority of local media fear for their survival after the privatization and are fighting for their transformation to regional public service broadcasters.

The question whether establishing regional public service broadcasters was feasible in Serbia, as well as how they would be financed when even RTS and RTV had difficulties in the TV subscription fee collection rate, was probably the main issue debated. The state has decided to stick to such models of media in the Strategy, which stipulated the establishment of six regional public services. Today, this concept has been dropped as well. Regional public service broadcasters are mentioned neither in the Draft Law on Public Information and Media, nor in the soon-to-be-drafted version of the Law on Electronic Media. Does this mean the much invested effort in the drafting and adoption of the Media Strategy was a waste?

Speaking at the public discussion on the Draft Law on Information, Head of EU Delegation to Serbia Vincent Degert asked: what exactly is the region in Serbia? And he is absolutely right. How can one speak of regional public service broadcasting, when there are no regions in Serbia at all.

Hence, Serbian political elite will have something else to trade with. But, judging by the announced reconstruction of the government and new elections, it is more likely that this whole thing will be put to a halt again, only to start from the scretch in a due time with some new government. With the dialogue date coming closer, Europe won't be very happy about it. Is there an end to regulation of the media sphere in Serbia?