Municipal councilors plead in favor of keeping “Antena C” and “Euro TV” as public institutions

Municipal councilors say that until now CMC did not seriously discuss about the reorganization of municipal broadcasting stations “Antena C” and “Euro TV Chisinau”. They affirm this is the reason why this issue is worth to be discussed in detail, so that “the reorganization for the sake of reorganization” is not admitted. At the same time, several councilors plead in favor of preserving their status quo – public broadcasting institutions. According to the leader of People’s Christian Democrat Party in the Municipal Council, Alexandru Corduneanu, the Christian-Democrat councilors consider that the reorganization of the two stations must be carried out by public auction, but the decision belongs to CMC. The issue will be most probably discussed at the session scheduled for the next Tuesday, Corduneanu said. He also declared that he does not know if the legal term for the reorganization of the local broadcasting institutions has expired, mentioning that he saw a letter from the Audiovisual Coordinating Council for the interim mayor, an answer for which must be given within 7 days. The leader of the Christian-Democrat councilors mentioned that he discussed this issue only with the councilors of his faction. Chairman of AMN faction, Pavel Caba declared that, first of all, the municipal councilors must see the draft decisions and examine them in a separate session, so that the reorganization of the local broadcasting institutions is not carried out “for the sake of the reorganization”. “Legally speaking, according to the Audiovisual Code, this procedure must be performed via privatization, but we must allow the staff of “Antena C” and “Euro TV” to participate in this process. We also ought to discuss with the administrations of the municipal enterprises about the way they see the reorganization and we must first of all take into consideration the persons working there”, Caba declared. He confirmed the fact that the council did not yet discuss about the reorganization of the local broadcasting institutions. Independent councilor Ion Mamaliga thinks that it would be better if the local stations would remain public, because the citizens need public broadcasting institutions. “I strongly believe that “Antena C” and “Euro TV” should be improved, at least as an alternative to the national stations which are only apparently public”, Ion Mamaliga mentioned. Communist councilor Serghei Novic has also pleaded in favor of maintaining the two stations as public institutions because, as he says “there are too many private stations”. Novic told Info-Prim Neo that he can not say for sure what CMC will decide, because he did not see yet the draft decision. The legal deadline for the reorganization of the local radio and TV stations expired on November 18. The draft decision, distributed to the local councilors on November 23, includes reorganization of “Antena C” and “Euro TV” via a public auction.