28. 07. 2014

Government adopts set of new media laws

Belgrade, 28.7.2014 (B92) - The Serbian government over the weekend adopted three media laws and sent them to parliament for a debate under urgent procedure.

The government adopted drafts on Public Information and Media, Electronic Media and Public Media Services.

The application of these laws is expected to help protect the public interest of the citizens in the sphere of information, ensuring freedom of the media and international standards in this area, a government statement said.

These bills will open the door for the state to withdraw from media ownership.

MPs will discuss the proposed legislation on Tuesday, July 29.

This development means that three years after the adoption of the Media Strategy, Serbia will get a new media law. Data transparency is one of the innovations that the law provides. A new media register will also be introduced, making available to the public information about anyone who has more than a five-percent stake in a media, but also information on state aid received by some media, says Slobodan Kremenjak, a member of a working group that drafted the bills.

"We had reports that the government favors certain media, helping them and in return receiving favorable reports and editorial favor. Here, practically every citizen will be able to learn how much money some media outlet got from the local government, public enterprises, the state," said Kremenjak.

The withdrawal of the state from the media was planned before, but not implemented. The new law stipulates a deadline for privatizations, but also prescribes what happens if deadlines are not respected.

"Concrete solutions that are offered mean that in the event that nobody buys shares, they will be offered for free to employees, and if employees refuse, then this media outlet will be removed from the register and will be shut down," said Kremenjak.

New powers are envisaged for the Broadcasting Agency (RRA). In addition to warnings and revocation of licenses, it will now be able to impose a measure of prohibiting the broadcasting of certain content which infringed on regulations.

"Hypothetically it could mean that if you violate some regulation in a reality show, the RRA will be able to prohibit you from broadcasting reality shows in the next 30 days," says Kremenjak.

Public broadcasters will be financed from the budget until 2016 and after that will receive money from a tax paid by the citizens. Lawmakers announced "much more stringent control mechanisms of the spending of taxpayers' money."

Previously, Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia Michael Davenport said the adoption of a set of media laws will be a big step forward in harmonization with European standards, announcing that the report of the European Commission on screening for Chapter 10 relating to the media sphere will be known soon.

"The EU and the European Commission want to implement a media strategy and media laws are the most important tool for this," said Davenport, adding that the EC has commented on several drafts, and that it would be "positive if the government of Serbia adopted this set of laws as soon as possible."

In his opinion, the media laws are the result of a broad public debate taking place during two years, supported the whole time by both the OSCE and EU member states.

The government says the legislation it passed are reform laws, which are in line with EU procedures.

State Secretary at the Ministry of Culture and Information Saša Mirković told B92 that the new media law would result in the abolishing of the television license fee.

Mirković explained that Radio Television of Serbia and Radio Television of Vojvodina will be financed from the state budget by 2016, and then from taxes.

"The fee is gone, the promise of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić that the fee will be canceled has been fulfilled. RTS and RTV will be financed from the budget of the Republic of Serbia by 2016 and then taxes will be introduced as a funding model. This tax cannot exceed the amount of 500 dinars, so it will be in the coming period defined according to the plans of public broadcasters," said Mirković.

In his opinion, the fundamental change brought by the new media laws relates to privatizations.

"We wanted these three laws to affect fundamental reforms in the media sphere. When they are adopted by the Assembly, many things will change through the implementation of these laws and we will soon witness a number of changes. For example, the state withdrawing from media ownership, which has long been discussed. And in the end, a real desire for that to happen through the adoption of these laws has manifested itself. According to current data, 81 media outlets should be privatized and it will have to be done by July 1, 2015. Project financing will be introduced of those projects that promote the public interest. The law will dispel many dilemmas and speculation that had previously existed about the ownership structure of the media," Mirković said, adding that he was "a big optimist that these laws represent a new beginning in the media sphere."

Asked whether it was necessary to adopt them under urgent procedure, Mirković said:

"We have been analyzing the situation in detail for years. The media strategy was adopted in September 2011 and its result are these laws. There were several public debates. For each of these laws, there was a public debate. Everything was done in a transparent procedure. There were working groups and even the Ministry of Culture and Information was praised by Transparency Serbia for the process of conducting public debates on the Law on Electronic Media, which will be the second in the set and will be a condition of digitization, which is to be implemented by June 17, 2015."

This official emphasized that "Brussels has no objections to the new media law" as they were worked on in accordance with European standards.

"We have done absolutely everything that is built into these laws in agreement with the European Commission and the delegation of the European Commission, whose experts have been involved in drafting the texts, so we engaged maximally and there have been no complaints," he said.

The Serbian parliament has in the meanwhile published the drafts on its website (in Serbian).