Subsidization fund in mass media sector to be created in Moldova

Chisinau, 14 March /MOLDPRES/ - A subsidization fund in the mass media sector will be created in Moldova. A draft law to this effect today was voted by 57 lawmakers in the second reading.   

The initiative belongs to a group MPs of the faction of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS). According to the authors, the creation of the subsidization fund will contribute to the development of the media pluralism, will strengthen the editorial and economic independence of the mass media institutions and will encourage the approaching of the issues from the fields of social interest, as well as the carrying out of journalistic investigations on issues of public interest.     

The value of the Fund’s financial means will be approved annually and the allocation will be established in the state budget law. It will account for 25 per cent of the budget of the national public provider of media services for the concerned year. At the same time, the Fund will be able to be completed with donations, sponsorships, grants or other financial resources which are not banned by the law.   

The mass media institutions due to benefit from subsidies on behalf of the state will be selected through a contest by a council made up of representatives of the Culture Ministry, Education and Research Ministry, Finance Ministry and of the representative media organizations. Also, the procedures of the carrying out of the contest and the monitoring of the turning to account of the means earmarked are regulated.   

The media institutions eligible for the providing of services will have to meet, cumulatively, more conditions – registration in the Register of mass media institutions, observance of the deontological code, the presence on market for at least one year, the lack of debts to the national public budget, the lack of sanctions for the infringement of the audiovisual media services code and of the deontological code of the journalist. At the same time, there are media institutions which will not be able to receive subsidies – the public providers of audiovisual media services, the institutions financed from the public budget, the mass media institutions with advertising character and the ones founded by political parties.   

The document will enter into force three months following the publication in the Official Journal (Monitorul Oficial).