01. 07. 2005

AMENDMENTS TO PUBLIC INFORMATION ACT

BELGRADE, July 1, 2005 – The parliamentary discussion on amendments to Public Information Act, which proposed the deadline extension for privatization of local media, was closed today. With this, the Serbian Parliament concluded the discussion on all proposed minutes of the extraordinary session’s agenda. Serbian Culture Minister Dragan Kojadinovic said that the deadline for the privatization of local media expired on April 21 this year, but that these media outlets would get one more year for nominating the interested buyers with the adoption of these amendments to the Public Information Act. According to the Minister, if the amendments were not adopted, it would mean that, tomorrow or one of these days, many of the local media would close down. “I believe such outcome would be damaging to overall media situation in our country, because, thanks to the media profusion, we can say that we are on the right track to democratization of the society in general, and not only in this field”, said Kojadinovic. He also said that it would be hard to estimate the number of local media to be privatized, adding that the public media registration requirements were abolished by the existing Information Act. The amendments to the Act propose the keeping records of the public media, said Kojadinovic, adding that this amendment had the most objections. MP of the ruling coalition and the Socialist Party of Serbia will support the proposed changes to the Information Act, while the Serbian Radical Party has announced to vote against them.