The government has given in to the demands of the media community
(Source: DW) For a full eight hours, representatives of the Government of Serbia and journalists and media associations negotiated the draft Law on Public Information and Media and the Law on Electronic Media. And reached a compromise.
“It was exhausting, but there was good will to improve the laws,” Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS) general secretary General Tamara Filipovic Stevanovic told DW.
The meeting was convened at the initiative of the OSCE Mission in order for representatives of the state and media organizations to try to harmonize draft laws, whose adoption is planned for the end of October. The meeting was also attended by the Ambassador of the European Union to Serbia Emanuel Gioffre and the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway Christine Melosom.
“The review process was conducted in an inclusive manner, with understanding among all sides, resulting in the agreement of all participants in the meeting. This represents a significant step forward in relation to the existing legislation,” the Government of Serbia said in a statement that followed the meeting.
Laws bring about positive change
The key novelties of the two laws are related to improving the independence of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) and regulating project co-financing.
Namely, the new Law on Electronic Media has depoliticized the REM Council by the fact that the members of the assembly committees will no longer propose members of the Council, as was the case so far, but among the authorized proponents will now be the Ombudsman and commissioners for the protection of equality and information of public importance.
In addition, after a long discussion, the state agreed to carry out the so-called “restart” of the existing REM council. “A solution has been proposed to elect new members within a year of the law’s entry into force, i.e. for new proposers to prepare their candidates in that year,” explains Filipovic-Stevanovic.
Major changes have also been introduced into the mechanism of project co-financing of the public interest, i.e. the distribution of money from the budget to the media, which in the past proved to be an instrument of political control of the media.
Namely, the new Law on Public Information and Media recognizes for the first time the Press Council as a self-regulatory body responsible for all media. Their decisions on violating the Code of Journalists of Serbia will be taken into account when allocating money in competitions, so that those media that violate the code of ethics are not financed with citizens’ money.
The state in defense of Telecom
On one thing, however, representatives of the media community and the state, as Filipovic Stevanovic put it, “agreed to disagree”. These are articles of the media law allowing the state teleoperator to establish its own media.
During the public hearings, Information Minister Mihajlo Jovanovic explained this part of the law by saying that the state “has no intention of returning to the media”, and that the disputed provision applies only to Telekom. “We cannot cripple one telecom operator in the market,” Jovanovic said.
The state was not ready to negotiate on this part of the law. “The state was of a very tough stance from the start that this was going into law and we knew we weren’t going to make a deal. We didn’t expect it to be withdrawn. Telekom already has its channels and this is only the legalization of the current situation,” explains Filipovic Stevanovic.
This only indicates how important this is to the state, adds Associate Professor at the Department of Media Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad and one of the members of the Working Group for drafting the Media Strategy Jelena Kleut.
“This tells us about telekom’s role in the media scene of Serbia and that the state will not back down from the tough fight against private competition, primarily against SBB, and tells us that such a role of Telekom is a crossroads of money distribution and influence with which the state can influence various processes,” Kleut told DW.
On the other hand, the state without discussion gave up on two disputed articles that were inserted into the Law on Electronic Media overnight, which establishes the schedule of channels and stipulates that REM determines the price that operators would have to pay for the redistribution of programs of national televisions. In public, these members were seen as a mechanism that could open up space for the financial depletion of independent operators.
“We have not received an explanation of how these members found themselves in the law,” said the secretary general of NUNS. “If we had a report from the public hearing, then we would know exactly where which article came from and what the amendment was and what is the explanation of why it was changed. But, since we skipped that one step, then we came to look at where and who added it, why and what are the motives,” Filipovic Stevanovic told DW.
The goodwill of the state or pressure from the outside?
The bills come after years of struggle between the media community and the state, which has been accompanied by numerous scandals. The goodwill shown by the state at the meeting on Tuesday, October 17, is interpreted by our interlocutors as a result of continued pressure from the media community, but also of Serbia’s aspiration to join the European Union in spite of everything.
“If anything broke in the government for these proposals to be accepted, I would first understand it as a tactical move to meet the pressures that can come from the international community,” Kleut said.
Whatever broke, it is good that progress has been made, adds the president of the European Federation of Journalists Maja Sever, who very loudly criticized the earlier solutions.
“This means that the efforts of people from the association who, despite everything that happened in the processes, agreed to participate and invest their knowledge and energy, still paid off. I know we’re going two steps forward one backwards, but one step is still something,” Sever told DW.
President of the European Federation of Journalists Maja Sever, President of the European Federation of Journalists Maja Sever
President of the European Federation of Journalists Maja SeverFoto: SNH
However, everyone agrees that this is just the beginning of the fight. “The documents themselves will not change the bad situation and pressure on journalists in your country, but we need this framework so that we can build protection and professional journalism,” Sever adds.
The task of media associations will be to follow the process to the end, and then to fight for the consistent implementation of legal solutions. “We’ve had solid regulations so far, but the way it’s been applied has been extremely problematic,” Kleut recalls. “Legislation, therefore, is not enough, it is the first step and there is room for moderate optimism that some things can change for the better.”
The laws are expected to be first before the government this Thursday (October 19th) and then before MPs who are expected to adopt them by the end of October.
Author: Sanja Kljajić