Negotiations over the media between the working groups of the political parties signatory to the Przhino Agreement, again have come to a standstill after yesterday’s bilateral meetings with Belgian mediator Peter Vanhoutte. Negotiators have restated their firm stances and have made clear that they do not intend to deviate from them. A new meeting has not yet been scheduled and it is unknown when it would take place.
The law, however, put forward by SDSM is not acceptable for the Association of Journalists of Macedonia either, not to mention that it was expressly rejected by VMRO-DPMNE. According to President of the AJM Naser Selmani, VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM have joined forces to undermine the proposal by the European mediator Peter Vanhoutte to reform the media system.
“What’s especially absurd, is the idea from SDSM that professional standards and ethics should be regulated by the law. A media crackdown with penalties and fines for violating professional standards do not exist in any democratic country. SDSM are trying to sell their bad solutions for the media and are trying to present them as solutions of the mediator. With such a conscious manipulation, they gave space for VMRO-DPMNE’s media propaganda machinery to impudently attack Mr Vanhoutte. In this case the AJM was collateral damage. We were accused of supporting the proposals from the SDSM, without being asked about our position on the matter. VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM have different names but share the same ideology – they both want to be the boss!”, says Mr Selmani.
According to Ilija Dimovski, a member of the negotiating team for the VMRO-DPMNE, this law is unconstitutional, non-European and does not exist in any country in the world.
