Publications likely to benefit from state assistance

A public-private working group on strengthening media has presented a draft Law on state assistance for public and private period press. It regulates the relations linked to allotting and assessing the usage of the state assistance for publications, Info-Prim Neo reports. Petru Macovei, the executive of the Independent Press Association (IPA), stated at a round table of the working group on Wednesday that the draft was going to contribute to promote the transparency when the period publications would present information about their economic status seeking for state subsidies. Jurist Eugeniu Ribca, the author of the draft, said the document was an innovation for Moldova, but very known in the Western countries. “The philosophy of the draft envisages to create an apolitical Period Publication Support Fund. Its necessity comes from the idea that the money, including the means coming from the state, must gather in a special fund, to be later distributed to the publications according to certain criteria,” he said. The management of the fund will be watched by the Parliament. Economist Valeriu Prohnitchi is certain “this draft will serve as a means to fight political corruption, including the one displayed in non-competitive supporting certain newspapers in relation with other publications.” The draft has been compiled with the support of editors from print press and is to be sent to the Parliament. The public-private working group on strengthening media was set up within the project “Improving the legal frame and the economic status of mass-media” which is a part of the program on Strengthening the Monitoring Capacity of the Civil Society in Moldova. The program is implemented by the Academy for Educational Development (AED), with the technical support of IREX, financed by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and managed by USAID within the Country Threshold Plan for Moldova. Strengthening the civil society's and media's monitoring capacity in Moldova is the second component part of the CTP.