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The Media in South-East Europe A Comparative Media Law and Policy Study Beate Martin, Alexander Scheuer, Christian Bron (eds.) A Comparative Media Law and Policy Study The MEdia in South-East EUrope – – EUrope South-East in MEdia The The Media in South-East Europe Comparative Media Law and Policy Study Based on Country Reports from Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia Conducted on behalf of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Berlin – Regional Project Dialogue South-East Europe By the Institute of European Media Law e.V. (EMR), Saarbrücken/Brussels, with the assistance of national experts from the countries concerned. Foreword 3 Foreword ment that is both immune to a higher degree against economic vulnerability as well as un- The media are of outstanding importance for due political infl uence and better suited to our European democracies – and certainly the overarching and individual function of the also beyond them. They are considered to be (respective) media. of the highest relevance for the formation of We would wish to acknowledge the sup- opinion, both individually and collectively, and port that has been offered by national experts a basis on which the citizens rely when gath- drafting the country reports, by stakeholders ering information and, subsequently, when who were available for discussing preliminary exercising their role in the democratic pro- results of those reports as well as by the resi- cess, mainly through voting in elections and dent representatives of FES in the South-East referenda. European countries which were included in Because the potential infl uence of the me- the analysis conducted. dia hence can hardly be underestimated, it is necessary to continue efforts to bring a con- Berlin/Saarbrücken, April 2011 siderable level of transparency into the con- ditions under which the media, foremost the press, broadcasting, online services and fi lm, Beate Martin Thomas Kleist function – entailing both the media law and Director Attorney at law policy framework as well as other conditions FES Kosovo Director EMR which have an impact on their actual practice. Given the fact that current research on the state of the media in South-East Europe has been identifi ed as a well-timed exercise, not only because of the approximation of this re- gion to the European Union, but also due to the eminent relevance of the media for the future development of the “younger democ- racies” themselves, the Friedrich Ebert Foun- dation – Regional Project South-East Europe has commissioned the Institute of European Media Law to conduct a study which should not only explore the market and legal con- ditions of the media sector in the countries concerned, but also identify suitable remedies that could be suggested in order to help im- prove, and overcome possible shortcomings in, the situation actually encountered. We fi rmly believe that the present study can contribute to an enhanced, fruitful and constructive dialogue, which should lead to achieving signifi cant progress in the short to medium term. And this should be in a num- ber of fi elds that are crucial for a develop- 4 The Media in South-East Europe – Comparative Media Law and Policy Study The Media in South-East Europe – Comparative Media Law and Policy Study 5 Table of Contents Foreword Beate Martin and Thomas Kleist ........................................................................................... 3 Preface Alexander Scheuer ................................................................................................................ 7 Executive Summary ......................................................................................................... 11 A Context and Framework Alexander Scheuer, Christian M. Bron and Shari Kind ................................................. 13 B Summaries of the Country Reports Christian M. Bron ...................................................................................................... 31 Albania - Ilda Londo .................................................................................................. 33 Bosnia-Herzegovina - Radenko Udovicic ..................................................................... 41 Bulgaria - Evgeniya Nikolova ...................................................................................... 55 Croatia - Nives Zvonaric ............................................................................................. 71 Kosovo - Vjollca Krasniqi ............................................................................................ 77 Macedonia - Borce Manevski, Andriana Skerlev-Cakar ............................................... 83 Moldova - Nadine Gogu ............................................................................................ 91 Montenegro - Daniela Seferovic ............................................................................... 101 Romania - Manuela Preoteasa ................................................................................. 115 Serbia - Slobodan Kremenjak, Milos Zivkovic ............................................................ 123 C Comparative Analysis Alexander Scheuer ................................................................................................... 131 D Conclusion Alexander Scheuer ................................................................................................... 147 Annex Questionnaire ..........................................................................................................149 List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................ 153 About the Authors ......................................................................................................... 155 6 The Media in South-East Europe – Comparative Media Law and Policy Study Preface 7 Preface of the media law and policy situation in the ten countries covered. After the beginning of the democratisation process in the 1990s, A report on Albania, published by the Eu- these countries had to tackle a number of ropean Commission against Racism and In- challenges in order to establish a media or- tolerance, wants to see the media being en- der along the lines of democracy, the rule of couraged to employ more comprehensively law and existing European standards, e. g. the established ethical standards, particularly state broadcasting should be transferred to in the context of racist expression; the me- a public service institution, state-controlled dia authority in Bosnia-Herzegovina has had print media should become free and respon- to deal with choosing the right approach to sible, market revenue-funded and organised react to the highly controversial content of a in such a way as to ensure that they could live programme broadcast by the public service up to their “public watchdog” function, etc. media; in Bulgaria, the acquisition of an im- To bring greater transparency to whether and portant commercial broadcasting organisa- to what extent the necessary progress has tion has been closed; the Croatian Electronic been achieved, also through devising the un- Media Law, as modifi ed, now also deals with derlying media law and policy concepts and the protection of encrypted media services; in their application in practice, and what the Macedonia, the Rulebook on the protection remaining challenges are – this shall be the of minors from programmes that might harm objective of the present analysis. The study is their physical, mental or moral development based on country reports drafted by national was adopted; on complaint by journalists, the experts (“correspondents”) that have been European Court on Human Rights found that elaborated on the basis of a detailed ques- for quite some time the independence of the tionnaire developed by the EMR in order to public service broadcaster in Moldova had not allow for the greatest possible comparability been suffi ciently guaranteed; in Montenegro, of the information gathered.2 Each report fi rst amendments to the Law on Electronic Com- looks into the political and market situation munications have fi nally paved the way to an under which the different media function, i.e. additional distribution of radio frequencies; press, broadcasting, Internet and electronic the contest for fi lm project subsidies has start- communications, and fi lm, and then goes on ed in Romania; the Serbian Law on Public In- to describe the relevant legal framework and formation has been amended – these few ex- the underlying media policy options. With amples of media law and policy related news, the aim of providing for a certain matrix or reported on mainly at the beginning of 20101 “benchmark”, the EMR provided the corre- and taken as a starting point for this study, spondents with a description of the relevant raised the important question of what, be- yond the importance of the individual events 2 The approach adopted for present purposes can be consid- portrayed, these developments actually mean ered well-established; it has been successfully applied also in view of a number of studies executed by the EMR in past for the situation of the media in South-East years, see for instance: EMR et al., Public Service Media Ac- cording to Constitutional Jurisprudence – The Human Rights Europe. and Constitutional Law Dimension of the Role, Remit and In- It is the primary intention of the pres- dependence, 2010; HBI/EMR, Study on co-regulation measures in the media sector, 2006;

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