Chisinau, January 15 (Infotag). Chairman of the Coordination Board for the Electronic Media Mr. Ion Mihailo thinks “there exists no censorship in Moldova in its classical form”.

He appeared at a news conference in Infotag today to present the results of a recent monitoring of the Moldova-1 national TV channel carried out by the Board, and said, in particular, that “in a majority of instances, the point is not in censorship but in the lack professionalism with some TV program authors. The situation has not practically improved even after the Teleradio-Moldova state company had been transformed into a public organization”.

Concerning the continuing scandal around the municipal electronic media of Chisinau, Ion Mihailo remarked, “They hold broadcasting licenses, but these companies have not been officially registered as legal entities”.

“The media holding of the Chisinau Municipality was established by order of the Chisinau Mayor because at that moment exactly the Mayor, not the Municipal Council, was eligible to make such decisions. The Council must grant autonomy to these mass media so that they could become independent, registered legal entities. This, however, has not been done till now, and the problem is being excessively politicized”, the Board Chairman said.

In his believe, “Law must be one for all. In Moldova, however, some people have a different attitude to this simple truth, and when you begin telling them that everybody must observe the law, they immediately attribute you to enemies of the nation”.

Journalists asked Mr. Mihailo to formulate the Board’s attitude to the Association of the Independent Electronic Mass Media (APEL), and he replied evasively that APEL united only 10 companies out of the 180 broadcasting license holders working in the country.

Board representatives spoke out for adopting a new legislation on the electronic mass media, as the present one is outdated: the media law was passed in 1996 when Moldova had only 30 license holders.

“It’s not only that the situation on the media market has changed – the Moldovan legislation itself is already different. Last year, for instance, the European Convention on Trans-Border Television came into force. Also, Moldova adopted a National Concept of European Integration. Both documents place a certain responsibility on Moldovan broadcasters”, emphasized Ion Mihailo.