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PAS wants to bring Teleradio-Moldova back under parliamentary control. The mandate of the heads of TRM and of the members of the Supervisory Board may end once the initiative enters into force

18 October 2021
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The mandate of the current members of the Supervisory Board (SB), the general director and deputy directors of the public company Teleradio-Moldova (TRM) may cease when several amendments to the Code of Audiovisual Media Services, proposed by MPs from the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) in a draft law, enter into force. The amendments concern, inter alia, the establishment of a mechanism of parliamentary control over TRM and the election of members to TRM’s Supervisory Board and to the Broadcasting Council.

The draft law was presented on October 18 by three PAS party’s MPs at a press briefing. “In the public space and in petitions to us, a series of violations committed by TRM’s SB and TRM management were reported, namely non-compliance with deontology, non-compliance with the principle of decision-making transparency, administrative and financial irregularities. Therefore, the draft law provides for revising the mechanism of establishing the composition of TRM’s SB, introducing clarity in this regard and proportional representation in the process of appointing candidates for membership of TRM’s SB,” PAS party’s MP Marcela Adam explained.

According to the MP, these provisions “will allow holding the national public media service provider Teleradio-Moldova accountable by establishing a parliamentary control mechanism and by reforming the body supervising its activity – the Supervisory and Development Board.” “The return of the national public media service provider under parliamentary control is natural, given that TRM was permanently under parliamentary control until January 1, 2019. In 2018, by government decision, it was removed from under parliamentary control and subordinated to the Broadcasting Council, which, in fact, is nonsense as long as the BC exercises, on equal terms, control over how all media service providers fulfill their obligations under the Code of Audiovisual Media Services. The subordination of TRM to the Broadcasting Council led to a serious deterioration of the company’s image and to decrease in the quality of the product offered by the national public media service provider,” Marcela Adam added.

The head of the specialized parliamentary commission, Liliana Nicolaescu-Onofrei, noted that amendments also aim to revise the mechanism of establishing the composition of the Broadcasting Council. The document was registered as a legislative initiative on October 14 and is to be submitted to public debate.