The Coalition for Media Freedom sent a letter to the minister of information, Dejan Ristic, on Friday, October 11, with the question of whether the draft law on advertising is aligned with the Media Strategy.
The Ministry of Domestic and Foreign Trade, which is responsible for application of the Law on Advertising, stated during the discussion at the round table that the legal provisions are absolutely aligned with the Media Strategy, and that they consulted with the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications in this regard.
However, after inspecting the draft Law on Advertising, we noticed that it is not aligned with the Strategy for the Development of the Public Information System in the Republic of Serbia for the period from 2020 to 2025 (Media Strategy).
The key topics that are not in accordance with Media Strategy are:
- Measure 2.2 – Determined measurable criteria for determining the thresholds of permissible media concentration and risk to media pluralism, in addition to the share in viewership, listening and circulation,
- Measure 2.3 – Reduced and made transparent the influence of the state on the media market, so that there are equal market conditions for all media, with special reference to problems related to advertising, public authorities and companies, which are majority owned or financed by the state,
- Measure 2.4 – Created equal conditions on the market of providers and distributors of audio-visual media services,
- Measure 2.5 – Creating an encouraging environment for the development of the media market,
- Measure 2.6 – Created conditions for self-regulation and co-regulation to take root in full scope envisages the establishment of an effective system of co-regulation within which the roles of public authorities (Ministry of Culture and Information and Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications), regulatory bodies (REM) and participants in media market and
- Measure 4.7 – Increased media visibility and non-discriminatory media coverage of women and vulnerable social groups.
The agreement reached between the representatives of the media community, the former Prime Minister and the representatives of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications under the auspices of the OSCE, included coordination with relevant ministries regarding issues that are important for the implementation of the Media Strategy. Despite this, the media community and proposals regarding the process of drafting the Advertising Law have been persistently ignored by the Ministry of Internal and Foreign Trade.
The conclusion is that the measures and activities from the Media Strategy concerning advertising were not respected by the Ministry of Internal and Foreign Trade.
The Coalition for Media Freedom: the Association of Media, the Association of Online Media (AOM), the Independent Association of Journalists of Vojvodina (NDNV), the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS), the Business Association of Local and Independent Media “Local Press”, the Slavko Curuvija Foundation and Branch Trade Union of Culture, Arts and Media ‘Nezavisnost’
Belgrade, October 16th, 2024
