10. 12. 2005

STRIKE, TELECOMMUNICATION, LICENSES

BELGRADE, NOVI SAD, December 10, 2005 – The competition for frequencies for the electronic media cannot be called until the Managing Board of the Telecommunication Agency ends the strike. Deputy Chairman of the Broadcast Agency Aleksandar Vasic said this agency had created two set of documents necessary for the frequency license issuing – the Broadcast Development Strategy, consented by the Government of Serbia, and Frequency Allocation Plan. Both documents were forwarded to the Telecommunication Agency, which has currently halted its operations. “All is ready for the tender for the broadcast license issuing for national coverage. However, the managing board of the Telecommunication Agency is holding up the whole process since it has not yet declared its opinion on the frequency allocation plan or forwarded it to the Ministry for Capital Investments”, said Vasic. According to Vasic, the Broadcast Council has set the seven-day deadline for the Telecommunication Agency to decide on the plan. Otherwise, the Council would be forced to initiate the relief of the Managing Board and implementation of the Article of the Broadcast Act which provides that the Ministry for Capital Investment should resume the competence of the Agency for 120 days. Vasic also said, under the legal procedures, the Telecommunication Agency should propose the Draft Plan to the Ministry for Capital Investments in order to enact it and to call the tender. According to Vasic, the Broadcast Agency asked the Telecommunication Agency to state its opinion about the Plan for frequency allocation, which should be done by Tuesday. If they failed to do so, said Vasic, the Serbian Parliament, the Government and the Capital Investment Ministry would decide on the Plan, an option foreseen by the law. Vasic said the Frequency Allocation Plan represented the technical document which regulated the level and power of the program broadcasting. “The Broadcast Development Strategy envisages 5 commercial televisions with national coverage, two networks of the provincial public service, 40 regional broadcasters and around 4 times more local television stations”, Vasic explained. The Strategy also envisages four commercial radio stations with national coverage, 40 regional and around 200 local radio stations. The Broadcast Act and the Public Information Act foresee the privatisation of the state-owned media, however, since the stations do not own much apart from their outdated equipment, they would not have much to offer in the privatisation process but the frequencies and broadcast licenses as their market value, which, unfortunately, could not be guaranteed. Dragan Bosiljkic from the Privatisation Agency said today that the first round of privatisation of media would be governed by the “qualification criteria” which would allow the consortium of employees or companies already in the profession to buy these media. Bosiljkic again reminded on the deadline for privatisation of local print media, April 23, 2006, and for local electronic media the end of 2007. According to the information of the Privatisation Agency, 141 media in Serbia should be privatized by that deadline. Presidents of the national councils of ethnic minorities in Vojvodina are displeased with the delays of transformation of Radio Television Serbia into a public service broadcaster of Serbia and public service broadcaster of Vojvodina. The statement, issued after the meeting in Novi Sad, sited that such decision was based on the authority and obligations provided by the Protection of Rights and Freedom of Ethnic Minorities Act, which ensured the respect of right to independence in the field of language and script usage, education, information and culture. “Each day of the transition period of the transformation further affects the fulfillment of the aforementioned rights in RTV Novi Sad by present decisions of the management related to the staff and program structure”, said in the statement. Such decisions were made “without a clear concept of the transformation and strategy or any consent or disapproval of the representatives of the national minorities’ councils, despite the assurances that their opinion would be sought and respected”. “Dismissals of chief editors in the minority newsrooms and appointment of new, suspensions of certain journalists, repressions, discontinuation or minimization of certain program units without consultations with the national councils, are just some of the examples of the alarming state of affairs in RTV NS”, said in the statement. National councils further stated that they would not and could not deny the rights of the members of their communities in the field of electronic media, especially in program and staff matters. The joint statement was issued by the national councils of Hungarian, Slovakian, Ruthenian, Romanian, Backa Croatian, Croatian and Ukrainian ethnic minority in Vojvodina.