Journalists in Moldova enjoy favourable conditions – ruling party

The Parliament, with the vote of the communist MPs rejected on Friday, July 6 the resolution entitled “Freedom of press and freedom of expression are throttled”, presented by 15 opposition MPs. The draft resolution started to be examined with the presentation of Government’s standpoint, which lasted 30 minutes. According to Nicolae Esanu, representative of the Government, we cannot say that there are no problems concerning the access to information, but it is impossible to reach the standards of the countries with centuries-old democracies in such a short period of time. The Government recognises there are cases when the central authorities and local authorities limit, without any justification, the access to information of public concern, but it categorically rejects the arbitrary way of approaching the issue, namely the fact those conclusions are drawn on the ground of isolated cases. Further on, Esanu said that the resolution is poorly prepared, and does not correspond to all the requirements, thus it can not be passed in because several standards are not observed and the accusations are not true. He proposed to reject the resolution. Victor Stepaniuc, head of the specialised Parliamentary Committee presented the notification of the document, which was voted only by the Communist MPs. Stepaniuc has recognised too that there are problems in the field and they are permanently monitored by the Parliament and Government. At the same time, according to him, a favourable legal framework was created for the functioning and development of the media in Moldova. “On the whole, the journalists enjoy favourable conditions in their activity”, the notification of the Commission reads, and according to it, the conclusions of the resolution are not presenting the real state of affairs in the field. On the other hand, the authors of the resolution, as well as other opposition MPs spoke about the critical condition of the media field in Moldova and criticised the way Esanu presented the standpoint of the Government. According to MP Oleg Serebrian, the issue is very serious and even the biased notification made by Stepaniuc ascertains numerous problems in the field. One of the most important problems is the systematic policy of the central authorities on monopolising the public speech, limiting the freedom of expression through pressure or financial interference. MP Gheorghe Susarenco compared the speech of Esanu to a “report of a wannabe Soviet savant with his head full of communist-scientific philosophy”, and Vladimir Filat said that Esanu had to present his opinion on the essence of the resolution, not on its form. All the speakers said that the problem tackled in the resolution exists indeed and that only the ruling party wants to hide the truth. Only the communist MP Constantin Pasencic pleaded against the resolution, saying that since the communists rule the country, the freedom of press and expression increased, fact proved, according to him, by several international reports. The resolution was voted by all the MPs, excepting the communist ones, but it was not passed as it was supported by an insufficient number of MPs. The draft document stipulated that the Prime-Minister shall take under personal control the implementation of the Law on the access to information, as well as of the Action Plan Moldova-EU in what concerns the engagements on ensuring freedom of press and expression; the Minister of Internal Affairs shall undertake legal actions to step up the settlement of the cases when the journalists were aggressed and not to admit anymore intimidations or other types of abuses against the journalists; the Government shall stop the economical-administrative governmental interferences in the development of the media market and will respect the fair competition principle between the media operators.