29. 03. 2008

PRESENTATION OF THE FIRST SURVEY OF EFFECTS OF THE BROADCASTING LAW

Belgrade, March 29, 2008 (Danas) – Governmental interference, adoption of contradictory laws and suspension of the privatization process have caused the waste of time and held back the necessary transformation of the whole media system – said Rade Veljanovski, professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, at yesterday's presentation of the report on the first monitoring of effects of the Broadcasting Law.

He estimated that near the end of the last year the government has in a "completely tactless and undemocratic" manner passed the Law on the Capital City and the Law on Local Self-Government, which were seriously contradictory to the Broadcasting Law and the Law on Public Information. In his words, "in a very politicised atmosphere", the government has succumbed to pressures and "special interests, which are certainly different from the public interest".

- Using the excuse that minority media must be preserved, the municipal governments have been allowed to establish media outlets in the majority language, which is the Serbian language. This decision was meant to allow local media outlets to remain under the governmental influence, which is essentially contrary to democratic standards, explains Veljanovski.

Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, Miroljub Radojkovic, said that during the first three months of 2008, the situation in the field of electronic media has further developed "...towards a new chaos".

- Adoption of the Law on the Capital City was beneficial to the supporters of the so-called Kragujevac initiative, which advocates that large cities should not privatize their radio and TV media outlets, but transform them into public service broadcasters. Since the Law on the Capital City allows Belgrade to establish its own media, it is unclear whether such right should be denied to other cities, which would further increase the differences between the capital and the so-called province, Radojkovic points out. 

He adds that the appearance of civil society radio and TV station is a good news, although "they were not founded by citizens' associations, but mostly by the Serbian Orthodox Church".

Regarding the Serbian public service broadcaster, Radojkovic is of the opinion that numerous election campaigns caused repeated questioning of the RTS' conduct. Those who believe they were treated unfairly demand the TV fee to be revoked or reconsidered, which is a "dangerous political proposal".

- The whole year will be characterised by a new chaos in the media sphere, concluded Radojkovic.

Jelena Sucurlija, a media expert, pointed out that what has occurred was the biggest worsening of the enforcement of media laws since the beginning of the monitoring, adding that she hopes the Constitutional Court of Serbia will soon act with regard to this "blatant violation of the law and decide how to solve this crisis in the area of media laws in Serbia".

Return to the nineties

Professor of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Rade Veljanovski, considers that the minister of public administration and local self-government was wrong when he recently pronounced that new laws were not contradictory to previous laws, adding that radio stations have resurrected the "patriotic" reporting from the nineties, "because the media accepted government's terminology".