Municipal stations „Antena C” and „Euro TV Chisinau” to be reorganized via alienation

Communist and Christian-Democrat Councilors from the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) approved on Thursday, November 30 the decision on the reorganization via alienation of the municipal broadcasting stations “Antena C” and “Euro TV Chisinau”. The issue was discussed for more than 4 hours within the frameworks of Council’s session, and the decision displeased several councilors who left the sitting room as a token of protest. Several councilors did not approve the aforementioned draft decision. Valeri Climenco declared that the 2 stations are the only ones allowing other point of views but those favorable to the government party. By means of these actions, the government tries to eliminate the institutions from the media market, he said. Other councilors, representing “Moldova Noastra” Alliance and independent ones declared that the alienation of the two stations is a political order. The communist faction denied these accusations. Valeri Pavlov declared that since the creation of the stations, they only spent financial resources from the municipal budget without having any profits. As a retort, the AMN Councilor Oleg Cernei declared that the 2 stations are public institutions and their goal is not to generate profits. By means of the two stations the local public administration, including the councilors, are able to directly get in touch with the population, which is more important than the value of money, he said. After more than 2 hours spent for debates, the AMN faction solicited a meeting with the leaders of the factions in order to find a compromise. Only the leader of the Christian-democrat councilors did not accept this proposal. After coming back to the session room, AMN presented a new draft which was discussed by the leaders. It includes constituting a commission which will present within two weeks proposals as for the reorganization of the stations. The Christian-Democrat faction pleaded against this proposal, and the communists solicited to vote the draft of the Legal Department as basic draft, and afterwards proposing amendments. These proposals were again debated by the councilors. After about an hour of debates, the councilors asked for the opinion of Vasile Ursu. He proposed approving LD draft, but excluding “via alienation” syntagm. The proposal of Ursu was voted, being supported by 30 councilors, including communist and Christian-Democrat. AMN and several independent councilors abstained from voting. Afterwards, Svetlana Popa, the leader of PCRM faction, proposed to include again the “via alienation” syntagm. As a token of protest, the AMN faction and the independent councilors left the room, accusing the rest of the councilors that they carry out political orders. After about 20 minutes, the chairman of the session Mihai Severovan has also left the room, and the new elected chairman, Euegenia Starcea, PPCD, proposed voting the proposal, which corralled 29 votes. Claus Neukirch, spokesman of OSCE Mission in Moldova, who was present at the session, avoided to offer any comments to the press about what happened at the sitting. According to him, the Mission closely observes the evolutions in the broadcasting system. He considers important the presence of pluralism in media. He said that, after the approval of the Audiovisual Code, the most important concern is by what means it will be implemented. Vasile State, the director of “Antena C” declared after the session that this decision “which might had been made somewhere else than in CMC”, is a hard blow to journalists, proving once again that politicians carry out their interests without taking into consideration the interests of the public. The local administrations have anymore no right to be the founders of electronic media institutions as stipulated in the new Audiovisual Code.