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OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, today expressed concern about amendments to the public broadcasting legislation that would create another public service broadcaster in Bosnia and Herzegovina, thus damaging financial sustainability of the current public broadcasting system.

Last Friday, 11 January, the BiH Council of Ministers adopted amendments to the Public Broadcasting System Law to create an additional public television channel. If adopted by the BiH Parliamentary Assembly this would add a fourth public service to the existing state-level broadcaster and two entity-level public broadcasters in a country with less than four million inhabitants.

“The current public service broadcasting system is already in a dire state due to the non-implementation of the current legislation and poor financial situation. Rather than creating new broadcasters, the authorities should strengthen the independence and professionalism of the existing public service broadcasters. They should also support the digitalization of the broadcasting system in BiH so that the country does not become a black analogue hole in the center of Europe,” said Mijatović.

“As envisaged by this amendment, the new broadcaster would cater to only one ethnic constituency, thus contributing to further fragmentation of the society,” Mijatović stressed, adding that any public media has the duty to serve all citizens of a country, not particular ethnicities or groups of citizens.

In September 2012, the European Union Special Representative, the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the OSCE Representative presented to the authorities two legal reviews of eight laws pertaining the Communications Regulatory Agency (CRA) and the public service broadcasting system. The reviews include a set of recommendations and were prepared to assist the country in re-establishing a media framework that allows for politically and financially independent public service broadcasters and a broadcast regulator.

“It is regrettable that none of the recommendations have so far been considered,” Mijatović said.

She said that the reform of the public service broadcasting system should be led by the Ministry of Transport and Communications and welcomed the efforts of the Ministry to start implementing the existing legislation, a crucial point of which concerns the establishing of a functional Public Service Broadcasting Corporation.

“I urge BiH authorities to focus on a legal reform that would strengthen the existing system in line with OSCE commitments and international standards on media freedom.”