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Monitoring Report: Experts recommend authorities to accelerate the fulfillment of the commitments assumed in the media field

02 October 2017
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The National Action Plan (NAP) for the years 2017 - 2019 regarding the fulfillment of commitments regarding the media field, undertaken under the Association Agreement between the Republic of Moldova and the European Union should be sped up. This is one of the main conclusions of the Second Monitoring Report on Fulfillment of the said obligations, which was presented on Monday, September 18th, by the Independent Press Association (API).

The report included a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the actions undertaken by authorities regarding the fulfillment of tasks mapped out in the Agreement for the period June-August of the current year. Thus, according to media researcher Aneta Gonta, one of the authors of the Report, the actions planned for the period June-August 2017 for the media sector were insufficient and referred mainly to the broadcasting field, leaving out the online and printed press.

"The quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the NAP planned for the months of  June-August 2017 accumulates one point less compared to the previous monitoring during March-May" stated Aneta Gonta.

In this context, executive director of API Petru Macovei underscored that for the media community it is paramount that actions foreseen by the Association Agreement and especially in the NAP are not formal: "Maybe it is not that important and relevant that an action wasn't executed exactly in the strictly calendaristic planned period. The essence is what is important. Altogether, even the most optimistic evaluations -- and our colleagues Aneta Gonta and Ion Bunduchi [authors of the report] were surely very optimistic during this monitoring -- show 6 out of 12 points possible. (...) We could talk about the inexistence of consistent actions in this domain," Petru Macovei pointed out.

Artur Cozma, member of the Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC), expressed his certainty that the institution he is part of will fulfill its engagements in the projected time in accordance with the mentioned plans, "despite the lack of certain capacities", which the latter refused to name.

The authors of the report mentioned that during the monitored period certain unplanned actions took place, such as the meeting of the Working Group on Better Media Legislation to the Parliament. The Group has its priorities focused on elaboration of the strategy for media development in Moldova, also featured in the NAP; elaboration of a new Broadcasting Code; elaboration of the strategy regarding the informational security of the country and so on.

The experts recommended that for an adequate implementation of opportune and relevant actions for media development the plan should be accelerated so as to observe the priorities mapped out by the Working Group for empowering media legislation.