The Liberal Party disagrees with the project of the Audio-Visual Code

The Liberal Party disagrees with the project of the Audio-Visual Code approved in first reading by the Parliament. According to the Liberal Party leaders, cited by Info-Prim Neo “the project demonstrates that the present government isn’t capable to liberalize the electronic mass-media”. The vice-president of the LP, Dorin Chirtoaca declared at a press conference on Monday, 10th of April, that according to the law project the Coordinating Council for Audio-Visual (CCA) will be exclusively formed by the political power. The civil society will be excluded from the process and the local public audiovisual will be wiped out. He said that the government coalition premeditatedly offered to the Communist Party the privilege to form the majority and to take decisions by itself (5 members of 9). It results from the following stipulation that “the CCA members will be proposed by the specialized parliamentary committee taking in consideration the number of electoral mandate’s of the legally formed factions”. That is the reason why there will be no difference between the present CCA and the one that will be formed, added Chirtoaca. “The governing leaders declare in a cynical way that these initiatives are made in order to promote European values” said Chirtoaca mentioning that the European standards don’t stipulate the possibility to create one single public broadcaster with national cover or don’t interdict the existence of several radio or TV public broadcasters either, inclusively local. He stated that “the European norms stipulate the existence of several broadcasting institutions that are a part of the public broadcasting service”. Chirtoaca considers that “Antena C” and “Euro TV” deserve more the status of public broadcasters than the Company “Teleradio-Moldova” because this institutions have less resources, but promote a more liberal and pluralist policy. In the context he expressed his worry about the fact that the Mayoralty and the Municipality Council from Chisinau showed their complicity with the central government stopping the financing of the local broadcasters at the begging of the year. In order to overtake this situation, the LP considers necessary to organize some political debates on the subject with the participation of the political parliamentary and extra parliamentary parties and of the civil society. LP proposes to make Antena C and Euro TV public institutions with national covering, fact that could lead to a normal concurrency in the public audiovisual field. As well, LP considers that the civil society should participate at the public control of the audiovisual. The audiovisual law should stipulate the obligation of the public TV institutions to organize public debates on a daily based regime and to inform about the events organized by the political parties.