Different opinions regarding the necessity of local public broadcasters

Participants at the international seminar “National audiovisual: adjusting the juridical framework to the European Standards”, that started on Tuesday, April 25 at Chisinau have different views regarding the necessity of the local public audiovisual. While the People’s Christian Democrat MP, Angela Arama is against these types of institutions, the audiovisual experts and the members of Our Moldova Alliance (AMN) are, on the contrary, against excluding these institutions from the media landscape. The deputy Angela Arama, one of the authors of the Audiovisual Code Draft, declared at the seminar that the Republic of Moldova is a poor country and the local budgets can not afford a TV or a radio station. Angela Arama declared, at present a denationalization strategy of the press is promoted and in the case there will be insisted on preserving local public press, the electronic private media will die by itself. On the other hand, Ion Mihailo, the president of the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual said this is not a proper moment to ignore the local public institutions. Even if now there is no money, a favourable time could come when the money problem will be solved and at that time the legislation would have to be changed again. Moreover, the possibility to create such institutions, stipulated by the law does not oblige anyone to create them. Vasile State the head of the municipal radio station Antena C expressed his “regret and disapproval” regarding the intention to exclude public broadcasters. According to him, the financial aspect is not convincing. By expelling out of the legal framework Antena C radio and Euro TV an interdiction is committed, fact that does not comply with democratic values, declared State. The same opinion was expressed by other participants at the seminar, inclusively the AMN deputy Anatol Taranu, the head of the Europa Libera Office in Chisinau, Vasile Botnaru, the audiovisual expert Constantin Partac etc. The project of The Audiovisual Code adopted on April 6 by the Parliament stipulates the existence of a single public broadcaster – the Teleradio Moldova Company.