16. 09. 2008

HOW TO ELIMINATE THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE FROM RTS?

Among the announced media regulations which ought to enter the parliamentary procedure rather soon there is the Law on Public Services. However, it is still not decided whether the area will be regulated by a separate law, or if the matter of Serbian public services will be solved within the Law on Radio Diffusion.

Belgrade, September 16, 2008 (Danas) - Dragan Janjić, Deputy Minister of Culture in charge of the media has confirmed for Danas that the media experts still have misgivings as to whether the public services sphere ought to be regulated by the Law on Radio Diffusion as it is at present, or if a separate law should be passed.

- The idea of a separate law appeared when we realized that we needed a full year to work on the Law on Electronic Communications, which would replace all the current media regulations. That is why a Public Information Law will be passed, which will regulate the content. In such circumstances, it would not be good if the regulations of public services belonged to the Law on Electronic Communications or the Public Information Law. Accordingly, the Law on Radio Diffusion will also be a part of the Law on Electronic Communications – Janjić explained.

When asked whether the passing of a separate Law on Public Services would increase the influence on RTS, he pointed out that there was a political influence on the media in all the countries and that “one needs not fear the changes, but readily accept the passing of the Law on Public Services.” The Ministry of Culture has not yet appointed a workgroup which would commence to work on that Law, stressed Janjić and added that he hoped the first meeting of the workgroup would be held by the end of that week or early the following week.

- I would like the workgroup to make two versions of the Law on Public Services. In one of them, the matter should be regulated within the Law on Radio Diffusion, and in the other a separate law ought to be made. Afterwards, we ought to reach a decision as to which solution would be more acceptable in a public debate – said Janjić.

Dragana Nikolić-Solomon, the Head of the Media Department of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, says that the dilemma about whether to regulate the public services by a separate law or under the scope of other media regulations is artificial.

- It is essential that the new legal solutions in the area must not jeopardize the already achieved level of conformity to European standards, but rather to improve them so that the danger of political and economic influence on the institutional autonomy and independent editorial policy of radio-diffusion services would be eliminated – Nikolić-Solomon explained.

According to her, the laws in the sphere of the media often attract politicians’ attention, “and the introduction of truly independent public services requires the courage of the politicians in power”. She claims that the Serbian politicians showed that courage even back in 2002, when passing the Law on Radio Diffusion, which introduced in Serbia the completely new concepts of independent public radio-diffusion service and an independent regulatory body for the sphere of radio diffusion.

- I believe that the politicians who are currently in power possess the same sort of courage and those they will not allow the existing standards to decrease. Naturally, the OSCE Mission to Serbia will carefully follow the drafting stage of the new regulations and will give its opinion on them when they are finished – stated Nikolić-Solomon.

When asked whether the laws on public services in the countries of the region could be implemented on the situation in Serbia, she reminded the public that the Media Department of the OSCE Mission followed and knew the situation in the region and other European countries, and she pointed out that the legal solutions of other countries were not directly applicable, notwithstanding the numerous common characteristics of the countries formed after the disintegration of the former SFRY.

- In each country, that type of regulations depends on the legal system of the country and its tradition, the achieved level of economic and cultural development, its geographical location, ethnic and religious structure of the population, etc. What matters for Serbia and other countries in the region is to ensure that the legislation in the sphere contains a certain number of fundamental principles of universal value, with the aim of enabling a legal basis for a truly independent public radio-diffusion service.

The sphere of radio-diffusion service in Serbia has been regulated by the Law on Radio Diffusion from 2002, and the Public Services of Serbia (RTS) and Vojvodina (RTV) were founded in May 2006.

A New Law to Oust Tijanić

Nataša Mićić, an LDP official, has recently stated in the “Impression of the Week” series that the LDP party had not yet renounced the idea to oust the RTS managing director, Aleksandar Tijanić, as well as that there would be changes in the position by the following year at the latest. There has been rumor that precisely the passing of the new Law on Public Services would prove to be a possibility to renounce Tijanić. Another LDP official, Zoran Ostojić did not wish to comment that statement, but he said that his party’s policies were: „consistence, determination and persistence“.