The executive committee of the Croatian Journalists' Association (HND) on Wednesday decided to leave the Ministry of Culture task force working on a bill on electronic media, the HND has reported.

The HND said that the ministry had not incorporated any of its proposals in the draft bill which the HND submitted to the ministry in late August after it had been presented with the working material in late July.

“We note that the HND entered the task force responsibly, in good faith and with the best intentions, expecting that we all had the same goal – to improve the media in Croatia in performing their democratic role in society,” the HND said.

The HND considers that it is not good that after 15 years the ministry has decided, without having defined a media policy or adopted a new media law, to prepare only the bill on electronic media of all media-related laws.

“We regret that we were not included in the entire process of defining the content of comprehensive legislation and we are under the impression that decisions were adopted outside the task force,” the HND noted.

The HND’s most important proposals were to secure the independence of the Electronic Media Council and transparency in selecting its members, increase the financing of the fund promoting electronic media pluralism and diversity, and clearly define the fund’s mission.

The HND proposed that the fund’s resources be used exclusively to support quality media content and professional journalism, that the law incorporates the obligation to adopt statutes of editorial boards in electronic media, that abuse of public money for advertising be prevented and that the share of broadcasting licences for non-profit media be determined.

The HND underscored that the bill on electronic media was geared towards further commercialisation of the media and requested that priority be given to local media production, particularly by the Croatian Radio and Television public broadcaster.

In conclusion the HND noted that its proposals for the new bill were based on the association’s document “Eight demands against censorship” that it had forwarded to the government during a protest rally by reporters earlier this year.

The HND decided to abandon the task force after Culture Minister Nina Obuljen Korzinek on Monday told a SEEMF media conference that the bill on electronic media would be put to public consultation in two to three weeks.