The participants in a roundtable meeting centering on the bill with amendments to the Broadcasting Code, which was passed in the first reading, insisted that the broadcasters whose owner is not made public should not be issued with a broadcast license.
Broadcasting expert Eugeniu Rybka, who took part in the drafting of the bill, has told IPN that the document contains two main proposals: presenting information about the owners of TV channels and radio stations and publishing this information on the websites of the given stations and on the Broadcasting Coordination Council’s website.
The bill was drafted by the Independent Journalism Center. Eugeniu Rybka said that given the government’s opposition to it, the experts decided to follow the small steps tactic so as to achieve the set objective. The participants in the roundtable meeting proposed instituting additional obligations for the Broadcasting Coordination Council and the Competition Council. The proposals will be synthesized and submitted to Parliament for the final reading of the bill.
In its appraisal, the National Anticorruption Center says the bill was drafted with ill will and will allow entities from the broadcasting sector to illegally enrich themselves. Eugeniu Rybka does not agree with such an assertion. He said that only the Center sees this ‘ill will’ and he does not understand how one can establish that something was done with ill will.
