Ro
En
Рy
According to the draft law, broadcasters requesting broadcasting licenses should declare their owners by submitting a document in this regard to the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC). In its turn, the BCC should publicly announce the names of owners and beneficiary owners of broadcasting licenses. According to the draft, broadcasters should indicate the names of their owners in their annual activity reports. The draft also provides the Council with penalizing mechanisms, which can be used to regulate this segment. “This draft law is intended to make a small step forward in electronic mass media,” said Eugen Ribca, expert in media law.
He argues that the BCC proceeds wrong when it presents only the names of companies running media outlets instead of indicating the names of their owners. “It is absurd. The BCC does nothing but manipulate the public, because in any licensing contest, potential license holders receive the document from the State Registration Chamber, which clearly indicates owners,” Ribca added.
Another expert in media law, Olivia Pirtac, mentioned that this draft law had been produced at the recommendation of the Council of Europe, and European standards concerning media ownership transparency in this case should be ensured by the state. “It is obvious that Moldova has a problem with that. It has been repeatedly stated in international reports. From this perspective, the draft law initiated by the IJC is a step forward to increase the responsibility of authorities and broadcasters, in order to help the public understand who the owners of mass media are,” Pirtac said.
Even if the adoption of this law fails to meet expectations, it is nevertheless an important step for the growth and evolution of broadcasting, Olivia Pirtac believes. “Even knowing some of the media owners is much better than knowing none,” the expert said.
When it comes to the negative opinion of the National Anticorruption Center (NAC) regarding this draft law, which was motivated by the fact that it allegedly violates the law on trade secret and the right to protection of personal data, Olivia Pirtac finds that the opinion of the NAC is groundless, because the two rights mentioned by anticorruption experts are not absolute, but limited. “It is evident that when we speak about media ownership, there is public interest: on the one hand, there are individual interests of some businessmen, and on the other hand, there is public interest to know whether they are manipulated or who manipulates,” Pirtac commented.
In his turn, Ion Bunduchi, the executive director of the Association of Electronic Press (APEL), believes that the adoption of this draft law is necessary also from the perspective of ensuring pluralism of opinions. He considers that in order to create a free society, no one should be allowed to impose a dominant opinion in public space. “We cannot build a normal society if we don’t have an information space including all opinions and are unable to choose the ones we feel close to,” Bunduchi mentioned.
Participants in the round table also discussed the initiative to prohibit registration of broadcasters in offshore zones. Vasile Nastase, the president of the Association for the Development of Culture and Protection of Copyright and Related Rights APOLLO, claims that from the economic point of view broadcasters should not be allowed to be registered in such zones. “Being registered offshore, they only pay about 500 Euros in the country of registration (such as Cyprus or Panama) and then in Moldova they don’t pay any taxes. Moreover, they hide their identities there,” Nastase said. In his opinion, the draft law should include more provisions that could lead to complex actions. The expert also spoke about excluding the provisions that allow an individual to have more than two broadcasting licenses.
In the end, civil society representatives signed a declaration asking the Parliament to abide by the legally established term for preparing and examining in the second reading the draft law on modifying and supplementing the Broadcasting Code of Moldova in terms of media ownership transparency.
Photo: IJC archives
