The executive director of the Independent Press Association (API) Petru Macovei said the state of affairs in the media sector hasn’t improved at all. On the contrary, things now stand worse than in the previous period. After the Sandu Government ensured slight improvements together with the Party of Socialists, things stopped. Those improvements at governmental level included the unblocking of databases and introduction of rent concessions for media outlets, IPN reports.

In an interview for Radio Free Europe, Petru Macovei said the media nongovernmental organizations demand that the MPs should return to a number of amendments and supplements to seven important laws that directly or indirectly refer to the work of the media. The bill that incorporates these amendments was drafted by the parliamentary group for the improvement of the legislation on the mass media and was introduced into Parliament on July 26, 2018.

“To better understand this, we should remember the story about this working group that was set up by Parliament Speaker Andrian Candu in 2017 and worked until 2017- 2018, producing a series of very good legislative amendments and bills as this group included civil society experts, well-intentioned persons who contributed to drafting laws. Regrettably, this working group was rather a formality through which the previous ruling party, the Democratic Party, wanted to report particular achievements in the media sector to the Europeans and Americans.”

According to Petru Macovei, now civil society insists that this bill should be adopted. Among others, the bill contains clarifications to the national legislation as Moldova’s laws do not yet define the notions of journalist and media outlet. The bill also envisions improvements to the law on access to information, the law on the freedom of expression. There are several changes that would clarify many unclear things in the legislation if they are adopted.