The Institute for Development and Social Initiative “Viitorul” Wednesday launched the Development and Promotion of a Modern Media Environment in Moldova Project, which is supported financially by the Delegation of the European Union to Moldova. The project is designed to promote the optimization of the legislation on the freedom of expression and the media sector and the signing of a road map for Europeanizing the media, Info-Prim Neo reports. Within the project, the Institute will compile the publication “Black Book of the Moldovan Mass Media” that will include all the cases of attack on the mass media. Twenty Moldovan journalists, including from the Transnistrian region, will be familiarized with the European practices of defending the freedom of expression and the media, the media legislation and other issues in cooperation with the Moldova Institute Leipzig. The good practices will be brought together in another symbolic guidebook titled “The White Book of the Moldova Mass Media.” The project also includes a campaign to promote the freedom of expression. “Viitorul” project manager Carolina Ungureanu said the dialogue and cooperation between the parliamentary commission for culture, education, research, youth, sport and mass media, the Broadcasting Coordination Council and the press managers will mark all the stages of the project. Attending the launch, the Head of the EU Delegation to Moldova Dirk Schuebel said progress in ensuring the freedom of the media started to be made after the new authorities came to power. “The fact that new media institutions were founded shows the press is much freer than a year ago. Effort must be made to create a really public national broadcaster. However, the TV channel NIT and the newspapers “Nezavisimaya Moldova” and “Moldova Suverana” complained of the way they are treated by the present Government. “This project will help create a truly free press” said the Ambassador. The Institute's executive director Igor Munteanu said they will also focus on the virulent statements and press censorship. “In the past, the journalists were forced to obey instructions from politicians and this fact affected their work,” he said. The head of the Moldova Institute Leipzig Vasile Dumbrava said the German experience in mass media will be useful to Moldova. In order to discourage the political interference in the work of the journalists, the politicians will be invited to sign publicly an agreement on non-involvement in the editorial policy of the mass media institutions at the end of the project. The one-year Development and Promotion of a Modern Media Environment in Moldova Project has a budget of €89,563.82.