Romanian media NGOs slam government ordinance on digital broadcasting

13 November 2008

The Convention of Media Organizations requested the Government to refrain from adopting such an abrupt and limited Ordinance with only two weeks before the Parliamentarian elections. The Ordinance invokes the 2012 Romania’s deadline for completing the transition to the terrestrial radio and television digital services and claims this creates an "exceptional situation whose regulation cannot be delayed."

The Convention reminded the Government that there exists a draft law amending the Audiovisual Law, with the aim to ensure the legislative framework for the transition to digitalization. This draft law has been initiated by the National Audiovisual Council (CNA) and promoted by the Ministry of Culture. Even if the current form of the draft law is imperfect, it is the result of an active and prolonged consultation with the main stakeholders involved in digitalization, including the broadcasters and media watchdog NGOs, it was subject to a public consultation process, as provided under the sunshine legislation and has been endorsed by the Ministry of Justice and  the Ministry of Finance. It was endorsed even by the Communications Ministry, who subsequently developed in parallel its draft Emergency Governmental Ordinance. It is this draft law that should be discussed in the Parliament during the next legislature.

The provisions included in the Emergency Government Ordinance that was put forward by the MCIT has, in the Convention's view, the following flaws: it leaves the whole mechanism of granting the licences for operating digital frequencies (the strategy, the terms of reference for bidding, the bidding itself, the fees and the final decisions) in the hands of the Government who therefore becomes "the gatekeeper"  of the whole audiovisual market; it makes no correlation between the technical aspects of the process of transition to digitalization and those related to the content of the radio and TV programmes that are to be broadcast and/or re-transmitted on the digital systems with terrestrial transmission, therefore ignoring the superior public interest: access to information to all citizens – one important principle in the transition to digitisation.

In the opinion of the undersigning organizations, the process of transition to digital radio and television services should start by making public the inventory of available frequencies - national, regional and local – followed by the elaboration of the strategy for transition to digital transmission and the strategy of program distribution (aiming to guarantee the right of access to information of all citizens) and ending with the establishment, by law, of the independent mechanisms which will lead to implementing these two strategies, with respect for fair competition and in a transparent manner.

Therefore, the Convention asked the Government to refrain from adopting in a rush and under the pressure of the electoral campaign a decision which will affect the media sector on a long term, without having had consultations with the main stakeholders and the public, as required by the law and necessary in a functional democracy.