18. 08. 2004

Vote on Broadcast Act Amendments tomorrow

BELGRADE, August 18, 2004 (B92) – The Serbian Parliament is to vote tomorrow on the government Bill to Amend the Broadcast Act. All parties except the Serbian Radical Party have indicated that they will support the proposed amendments. Members of the parliament’s Culture and Information Committee said today that the amendments were being introduced in an effort to unblock the work of the Broadcast Council. Under the proposed changes, the council will continue to be a nine-member body. Four members are to be nominated by the civil sector, three by the parliament’s Information Committee and one by the Vojvodina Assembly. The council members will then themselves elect the ninth members, a representative from Kosovo. Once the new council members are elected, the term of the present members expires. The new Broadcast Council is likely to be established in December. The deputy leader of the Democratic Party, Nebojsa Pajtic, explained why the changes are being made: “We expect the Broadcast Council to begin functioning as soon as this legislation is adopted and so we expect some order to be introduced to the broadcast sector. That’s something we really need,” he said. But Tomislav Nikolic of the Serbian Radical Party says this argument is completely without foundation: “This has nothing to do with the functioning of the Broadcast Agency, or with the functioning of the council. Under the Broadcast Act it was impossible to change the council members, the only option was to change the law and that’s why the opted for amendments to the procedure for electing council members. Once again they will be elected by the parliament, but this time they’re nominated by the committee rather than by the parliament,” he said. The Broadcast Bill, which was drafted by local experts with the assistance of consultants from the OSCE and the Council of Europe, was changed, just before being adopted by the parliament in 2002, by reducing the number of bodies from the civil sector which are authorised to nominate council members. Professional organisations have again warned that this model paves the way for excessive government influence on the Broadcast Agency and, thus, on broadcasting in general. Nebojsa Bugarinovic of the Independent Association of Serbian Journalists says that the civil sector in Serbia has been more involved with the Broadcast Council than in any other country. “The non-governmental sector, which has made a great contribution to the democratisation of Serbia and to the introduction of modern European standards in the country, deserves because of all it has done so far at least to take part in this way in creating a more positive media scene,” he said. The proposed amendments to the act have not been publicly debate. In the meantime, the legislation currently in force has not been implemented.