Newsroom
OSCE Mission issues statement on media situation in Serbia
BELGRADE 9 December 2004
BELGRADE, 9 December 2004 - The OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro today issued the following statement:
"Following the local elections held in Serbia on 19 September, newly established local authorities have initiated significant changes in the management and key editorial staff of local and regional broadcast media throughout the country.
When politically motivated, those changes might endanger the editorial independence and role of local public service broadcasters granted to those media by the Broadcasting Law until their privatization is completed.
In this context, the OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro wishes to recall that free, independent and professional media are crucial components of the democratic development of the Serbian society as a whole. This very fact has led the Serbian legislation to work on establishing a legal framework that guarantees such essential principles and practices.
The delay in the full implementation of the Broadcasting Law, adopted by the Serbian Parliament in July 2002, has in turn put on hold the prescribed privatization process of those media and left them vulnerable to political interference.
Aware of the efforts and expertise invested in strengthening the professional, managerial and editorial capacity of those media outlets over the last years, the OSCE Mission wishes to call on local authorities to refrain from any action that would prevent those media from fulfilling their role and obligations toward their respective communities, lower their professional standards and that would endanger the prospect for those media to be successfully privatized.
The necessity of ensuring that a proper legal instrument to guide the privatization of local and regional broadcast media is enacted by the competent authorities is therefore of utmost importance and urgency."
"Following the local elections held in Serbia on 19 September, newly established local authorities have initiated significant changes in the management and key editorial staff of local and regional broadcast media throughout the country.
When politically motivated, those changes might endanger the editorial independence and role of local public service broadcasters granted to those media by the Broadcasting Law until their privatization is completed.
In this context, the OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro wishes to recall that free, independent and professional media are crucial components of the democratic development of the Serbian society as a whole. This very fact has led the Serbian legislation to work on establishing a legal framework that guarantees such essential principles and practices.
The delay in the full implementation of the Broadcasting Law, adopted by the Serbian Parliament in July 2002, has in turn put on hold the prescribed privatization process of those media and left them vulnerable to political interference.
Aware of the efforts and expertise invested in strengthening the professional, managerial and editorial capacity of those media outlets over the last years, the OSCE Mission wishes to call on local authorities to refrain from any action that would prevent those media from fulfilling their role and obligations toward their respective communities, lower their professional standards and that would endanger the prospect for those media to be successfully privatized.
The necessity of ensuring that a proper legal instrument to guide the privatization of local and regional broadcast media is enacted by the competent authorities is therefore of utmost importance and urgency."