Civil Society concerned about Audiovisual Code’s implementation

The Electronic Press Association – APEL organizes a 2 day seminar “Regulations and Self-regulations in Broadcasting”, within the frameworks of which national and international experts, representatives of public authorities, of the Audiovisual Coordinating Council (ACC) and media institutions discuss the implementation of the Audiovisual Code, which came into force recently. Alexandru Dorogan, chairman of APEL said that following debates regarding the new law held in the spring of 2006, the civil society is still concerned about the Code’s implementation process. The aim of the seminar is to examine the implementation of the Code from the point of view of its authors, ACC members, as well as of the broadcasting institutions and of the information consumers, he stated. “The new law follow the standards of the European Union”, Dorogan added. Speaker of the Parliament, Marian Lupu, who attended the seminar, mentioned that this event complies with the common concerns to debate and to appropriately apply the provisions of the Audiovisual Code. During his speech, Lupu insisted upon the capacity of the media to self-regulate. Eugen Cibotaru, representative of the Media Division of the Council of Europe, stated that the CoE pays a special attention to the media, a proper regulation being necessary given its major impact on the public. It is important that the press serves the entire society not only a political party or an economic group. According to him, the regulation of the broadcasting field has particular features in Moldova, because it regularly confronts with the problem of the legal framework or policies applied in the field. This concern was presented in the monitoring reports and recommendations of the CoE delivered to the Moldovan authorities. Today CoE pays a close attention to the reforms in this field and will continue to provide assistance in order to adjust it to the European standards, the official added. Ruslan Plesca, member of ACC stated that the new law is much better that the previous one, if referring to the functioning of ACC. He mentioned in this respect about the way the members of the council are selected. On the other hand, media expert Constantin Partac said that, even if the law is perfect, it can not have the expected results as long as the state does not believe that the European standards would favour the broadcasting field and the entire country. He stated that the first session of the council proved that ACC is not using the advantages of the law but its weaknesses. Andris Mellakauls, expert of the CoE said that ACC must permanently work in order to be independent and to avoid the political influence and interests. It is not sufficient to say it is independent, it must be seen in this way by the society.