Serbia Has to Give Up on Arbitrary Media Policies

CRNPS

31 March 2006

Since the establishment of democracy in 2000, the media reforms in Serbia have been both slow and inconsistent. In order to expedite the approximation to requirements presented by the future EU membership, Serbia needs to give up on its arbitrary media policies and legislation and commit itself to implementation of adopted regulation.

In the field of broadcasting, it is essential to secure a fully independent regulatory body, capable to take over all of its obligations, election of new managing bodies of the Radio Television Serbia (RTS), in compliance with the legal procedures, and implementation of proper legal framework for commercial broadcasters.

These are some of the most important conclusions of the Report on Serbia prepared under the research project Television in Europe: Regulation, Policy and Independence, presented in Belgrade. The report for Serbia was prepared by professor Snjezana Milivojevic, and was produces and published by Open Society Institute in Budapest.

The conclusions of the report invite the Skupstina and the GOvernment of Serbia to overvcome the misunderstandings and improve the legal solutions where possible, and to renounce the past arbitrary approach to media policy and legislation, in order to provide for development and implementation of the new broadcasting policy fully compliant with European standards.

Over that past five years, Serbia adopted the package of media legislation, including the 2002 Law on Broadcasting, but the legislation has remained largely unimplemented. This Law defines the procedure for allocation of broadcasting licenses, the legal obligations of the broadcasters, and establishes the National Broadcasting Agency (RRA) as an independent regulatory body.

Nonetheless, the deviations from the legal procedure for election and appointment of the members of RRA Council by the Parliament (2003) and the ensuing political conflict disputed the legality of appointments and blocked the later activities of the Council. The election of the Council was finally completed in May 2005, after the introduction of changes in the Law that undermined its autonomy. The next round of amendments, in August 2005, additionally weakened the independence of the Agency in front of the political power.

RTS, the state broadcasting enterprise, has existed in legal void since February 2003, when the first deadline for its transformation into a public braodcasting service expired. The deadline was prolonged to April 2006, but the collection of the broadcasting fee was allowed to start in December 2005, before RTS became a public radio and television.

The political control over broadcasting remains in place. The Government ignorred the Broadcasting Law and appointed the new RTS Director General in 2004, under the excuse of its being dissatisfied with the work of the information department. It then used the resignation of the Steering Board to keep RTS in the status of state broadcasting enterprise dependent on the government.

The field of commercial broadcasting is even more chaotic, with more than 200 TV broadcasters working in 2005. This situation is not a consequence of a healthy market competition, but rather a reflection of the legal chaos and prolonged arbitrary approach to allocation of broadcasting licenses. The advertising market in Serbia is obviously uncapable to sustain that many TV stations and there is no insight into the real sources of funding. During the 1990s, several commercial TV stations managed to take the leading positions using the protection they enjoyed from the undemocratic government. Because of the legal void and the lack of proper media policy, these media empires are now in position to consolidate their shares of the market and, if clear rules are not established, to solidify their supremacy. Privately owned broadcasters have demonstrated their willingness to report in favour of political and economic interests of their owners, contrary to the basic European democratic standards.

OSI�s Report presents 17 recommendations for the Government, the regulatory bodies, media and professional organizations, which will have to be implemented if Serbia wants to move forward in the process of democratization and preparation for EU membership.

The Report for Serbia is a part of the series of monitoring reports from 20 countries, under the auspices of the Television in Europe: Regulation, Policy and Independence research project. The reports were prepared jointly by the EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program EUMAP and the OSI Network Media Programme.

All reports are available for download at www.eumap.org.