President Igor Dodon sent back the Code of Audiovisual Media Services adopted on October 18 this year to Parliament for reexamination. He argued the analysis of the Code’s provisions allowed identifying a number of drawbacks, IPN reports.

President Dodon said the provisions of Article 17, paragraph 4, whose declared goal is to protect the national audiovisual sphere, institutes regulations that concentrate and monopolize the national space with information, feature, military and political television and radio programs produced in the EU member states, the U.S., Canada and the states that ratified the European Convention on Transfrontier Television. “Only an insignificant percentage of media products produced in the over 190 states of the world is covered this way and the national consumers’ access to media products of another origin is thus limited,” he explained.

President Dodon noted the Constitution guarantees the right to information. Under it, the person’s right to have access to any information of public interest cannot be hampered, while the mass media are not subject to censorship.

On his Facebook page, Speaker of Parliament Andrian Candu commented that Igor Dodon provided arguments on several pages, trying to justify his refusal to promulgate the Code of Audiovisual Media Services. “I have only one argument that is above all the other arguments – for the first time the Code transposes the EU regulations in the field to the national legislation and this was drafted by specialists, not politicians. The freedom of the press is a subject that is outside the electoral context and will remain as such,” wrote Andrian Candu.

In January 2018, to have the decree on the promulgation of the law by which changes were made to the Broadcasting Code signed, Igor Dodon was suspended from post after he refused to sign the decree even if he was obliged to as Parliament confirmed its vote on the bill after reexamining it at the request of the President.