25. 08. 2011

ANEM SUGGESTIONS FOR AMENDMENTS TO THE PUBLIC INFORMATION LAW

Undeveloped advertising market in Serbia makes the state aid, direct or indirect, extremely important for the survival of the numerous media outlets. However, the absence of regulation in this area leads in practice to an uneven position of media as well as to non-transparent spending of budget funds earmarked for the public information, especially at the local level. In the absence of transparent and non-discriminatory conditions for state aid to media, these funds may be abused not only with the aim to disrupt competition on the media market, but also as a control and pressure mechanism of the government against the media.

With the belief that it is necessary to establish a system of allocation of the budget funds for public information in order to overcome the aforementioned problems, ANEM submitted to the Ministry of Culture, as early as in January 2011, its written Proposals for regulating that system. Furthermore, owing to ANEM activities and written proposals, together with NUNS and Local Press, two competent ministries - the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society and the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Government - furnished in June 2011 to all local governments the recommendations for the allocation of local budget funds intended for public information of local interest. Although these recommendations have not taken into account all requests of our associations, they represent the first attempt to regulate the system of budget financing of the media on a project basis. Moreover, in all discussions that have taken place in relation to the adoption of the Media Strategy, together with other journalists' and media associations, ANEM insisted on a substantial change of the manner of financing of the public interest, based on assurance that  financing of such interest should be enabled through projects accessible to all media under equal conditions and not through ownership, namely through the model of public companies that would be in charge of realizing the public interest.

Resuming its activities in this field and in line with the highest international standards set by the Indicators for Media in a Democracy adopted by the Parliamentarian Assembly of the Council of Europe (Resolution 1636 (2008)) and building on the released Draft Strategy for the Development of the Public Information System in Serbia until 2016, ANEM has produced written Suggestions for the amendments to the Public Information Law of the Republic of Serbia that are related to regulating the system of financing of the public interest in the media sphere from the state budget funds.

These amendments would consist of a change to Article 5 of the Public Information Law, the name of which would now read "The Public Interest in the Media Sphere" and which would define the list of what the public interest in the media sphere should be and the number of situations in which state aid may be permitted, including the aid for exercising the rights to information of special categories of persons (national minorities and ethnical groups, as well as persons with special needs). On the other hand, by adding a new Article 5a, the system of state aid would be regulated as a single system, regardless if the aid is allocated directly pursuant to the Public Information Law or if it is allocated by the province, on the basis of regulations determining the competences of the province, or by municipalities and cities pursuant to provisions of the laws governing local self-government, or if the aid is allocated in accordance with regulations concerning the system of public services, namely the work of public companies and performing activities of general interest.

On August 25, 2011, ANEM submitted its written Suggestions to the Ministry of Culture, Information and Information Society and the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Government, as well as to the Culture and Information Committee of the Serbian Parliament, along with a proposal to launch a procedure for introducing the aforementioned amendments to the Public Information Law.

ANEM Suggestions for amendments to the Law on Public Information are available (only in Serbian) here.