The situation with the media in the reformatory sector have been stopped midway and the media in Macedonia are facing with another entrapment like we had in the period-2015/16С due to the danger of depending on public assets.
This was stated in the latest research about one of the key conditions that were set by the EU for the candidate countries and was implemented by the Foundation for Internet and Society Metamorphosis during February 2020.
The main conditions were in the areas of safety of journalists, the transparency of central institutions, the access to information of public character and the self-regulation.
But this is so little in order to cover the weaknesses or the inactivity that are grouped into four aread
Но, тоа е секако е малку за да ги покрие слабостите или неактивноста кои главно се групирани во четири области:
-Lack of strategy for the development of the media sector and the lack of intent to do such a thing, at least on a verbal level on part of political doers;
The national broadcasting services MRT is unreformed and the regulatory agency for media is also unreformed, although the legal changes were achieved in 2018;
-Lack of political will among all relevant political factors both in the government and the opposition in order to distance themselves from the intent to influence the work of the media. A major instrument are the public assets especially when it comes to financing election campaigns in the media with enormous sums of assets from the budget;
-Request by media themselves, major private broadcasting services, including newspapers and portals, non-selectively to be granted assets or other subventions directly from the budget, the local municipalities or public enterprises or holding companies that are either state owned or semi-state owned.
The condition is getting more complex with the declaration of state of emergency in Macedonia on the 19th of March 2020, a situation when the rights and obligations of people and other subjects in the state are suspended. This situation can have a two-fold effects – authorities to speed up the reforms in the media sector by understanding their importance or to cause a step back by dividing the journalists and media to favorable and unfavorable, the return of self-censorship, etc.
The Metamorphosis’ research was conducted in accordance with all available data until the end of February 2020. It was conducted as part of the regional project “Western Balkans and the EU Accession Process: Applying Political Criteria”, led by the Center for Democratic Transition in Podgorica, Montenegro. The project is supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade and the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
