Parliament invites civil society to discuss the amendments to the draft Audiovisual Code without presenting the amendments

The Parliamentary Commission for Culture, Science, Education, Youth, Sports and Media took into consideration a series of proposals of the civil society as well as the recommendations of the Council of Europe (CoE) and operated several changes to the draft Audiovisual Code (CA), Victor Stepaniuc, the head of the commission, told reporters on Tuesday, July 25 at a meeting of commission’s members with media organizations. According to Stepaniuc, 80% of draft’s articles were changed. “But it doesn’t mean that the document was bad”, the MP stressed. One of the essential changes was, according to Stepaniuc, the one on appointing the members of the Audiovisual Coordinating Council (ACC). The draft stipulated their appointing with the votes of 2/3 of MPs, at the proposal of the commission, taking into consideration the number of deputies from each faction. As a result of the proposals made by the civil society, candidates for the position of ACC member will be proposed by the representatives of the civil society and will be examined by the commission and subsequently voted by 3/5 of MPs. As well, according to Stepaniuc, as a result of the amendments, ACC has no more such broad competences, for example the function of supervisor of the “Tele Radio Moldova” (TRM) Company. These competences will belong to a Council of Observers composed of 9 members (the present Council includes 15 members), which will be proposed by ACC and approved by the Parliament. Another essential amendment, according to the quoted sources, is the one on the functioning of local public broadcasting institutions. In the draft AC which passed first reading their place and role was not well enough settled. Stepaniuc declared that CoE experts were asked to offer a more clear opinion on this issue. In a special commentary they recommended that public institution might activate as subsidiaries or bureaus of TRM. Stepaniuc said that in this way supplementary attributions are transferred to TRM Company, including financial, and this issue must be discussed by the commission. Several representatives of the civil society and of the broadcasting institutions present at the meeting, were puzzled by the fact that they have to discuss about these amendments with only one day before the debates in the commission and with only 2 days before approving it in the Parliament without seeing these amendments. Therefore, several objections to the provisions of the new draft were presented. Alexandru Dorogan, the head of the Electronic Press Association, considers that the Council of Observers of TRM Company must be appointed by ACC. According to him, the public institution must be publicly controlled, so a mechanism that would ensure this control must be identified, otherwise the mechanism proposed by these amendments will not work and will not be secure. As well, the issue on transforming the present public radio and TV stations, including Antena C and Euro TV Chisianu in subsidiaries or bureaus of TRM provoked intense debates. Stepaniuc said that a final decision was not made on this chapter, but he hinted that the members of the commission will follow the recommendation of CoE. Alexandru Dorogan declared at the end of the meeting that it is hard to say something about the amendments in the situation when the provisions of the new draft AC were only orally presented by the authors. Even if the MPs could not comply with the form of the recommendations proposed by European experts, it looks like they did not catch the essential changes provided by the experts. The Chairman of the Journalists Union, Valeriu Saharneanu declared for Info-Prim Neo that the statements about the 80% modification of AC are not expressing the nature of these amendments. He considers that sufficient subterfuges are still standing and the present draft AC is “even worse and unproductive” as the present legislation is. “It is clear that the public audiovisual will be again controlled by the government, because the Council of Observers, which was to some extent autonomous will be now controlled, because its members will be appointed by ACC. As well, the draft AC aims at destroying local public broadcasters and legalizes the attacks over the private ones”, Saharneanu states, saying in the end that the present draft AC is very far from complying with European standards as the officials declare. The draft AC was elaborated by communist, Christian-democrat and democrat MPs and passed first reading on April 6, 2006. The representatives of other political parties as well as experts, journalists, representatives of the civil society qualified this document at the numerous debates on this issue as political and which will allow interference of the government in the affairs of the local audiovisual.