VMRO-DPMNE rejected the draft law on the media which SDSM submitted yesterday to the political parties signatory to the Przhino Agreement. According to Ilija Dimovski, a member of the negotiating team for VMRO-DPMNE, the law is unconstitutional, non-European and does not exist in any country in the world.
“The draft-law submitted by SDSM wants to increase penalties for the media. Also, it expects that MRT and the Agency for Media to be composed by members only from NGOs. The draft-law SDSM has proposed is an unusual balance, and even their idea on talk shows, for example, if it was to occur that five viewers call a show and praise the Mayor of Skopje, in the same show, five other viewers must call and attack the mayor. This was rejected once before, two months ago by all associations and organizations of journalists in Macedonia. This is “Gargamel law”, said Ilija Dimovski, before the meeting of the working groups at the MPs Clubhouse to resolve the contentious issues surrounding the regulation of the media.
According to him, on February 24, Parliament will dissolve, and it will take effect in only 20 days and the regulation of the Election Code, which will regulate the media sector.
“We believe that our media law is fully acceptable because it is approved by the relevant international institutions. However, if they do not want to accept the existing law on the table today, we will put all the laws from all the countries of the European Union on the table, and let them choose who will accept”, said Dimovski.
