18. 08. 2004

Interest groups “foster broadcast chaos”

BELGRADE, August 18, 2004 (Beta) – Serbia’s minister for culture, Dragan Kojadinovic, yesterday denied that the procedure for the adoption of amendments to the Broadcast Act had stalled. Rather, said Kojadinovic, the government wanted to avoid all potential problems in procedure. “The amendments which have been adopted are being retyped; we want to have a completely clear situation and we want this bill, which will serve as the basis for regulating the broadcast sector, to be adopted in a fast debate,” he told journalists. Kojadinovic also said that the situation in the broadcast sector is now much worse than before the overthrow of the Milosevic regime and that this had been particularly exacerbated after the imposition of a moratorium on allocation of new frequencies. “Now there’s such chaos in the airwaves that there isn’t a single frequency which is technically clean. Everything has been deliberately complicated, just so that this legislation could not be implemented, because there are a large number of interest groups who prefer this chaos,” he added. Once the legislation is adopted it will need another six months before it is implemented, said the minister, warning that the situation in the broadcast sector would deteriorate to the point where it will become intolerable.