23. 08. 2011

OEBS on the Media Strategy after its presentation

Belgrade, August 23, 2011. (Politika) - Some solutions that were offered by the working group could be further developed and more precise, said Dragana Nikolic-Solomon, Chief of the Media Department at the OSCE mission in Serbia.

 When the final text of the Strategy is adopted, the OSCE Mission to Serbia will enable its expertise and final evaluation of the document from of a wider, international perspective. As an observer, OSCE participated in all phases of the preparation of the first draft of this document, Dragana Nikolic-Solomon says.

- The Ministry of Culture, in accordance with the rulebook on the Government's operations, is not obliged to reveal the content of the final text of the Draft Strategy. There was a fear that publishing this text could lead to an endless public discussion on the solutions offered by the Ministry. However, since the Draft will be revealed in the end, it represents a good will of the Ministry to make it available to the public - Nikolic-Solomon said.

She said that the working group, whose task had been to prepare a preliminary version of the Strategy, had offered very good solutions in their Draft, but also that strong counterargument could have been heard during the public discussion.

- The Draft Strategy cannot cover all the details related to the reform of the media sector. Certain solutions offered by the working group could be further developed and more precise and among these solutions are digitalization process, financial mechanisms for enabling independent functioning of RTS and RTV, financial solutions for national minorities' media that are to provide the independency of their editorial policy - Nikolic-Solomon says.

- We are expecting the Government's decision on the direction of the media reforms because the Government is now who decide - Nikolic-Solomon emphasizes.