Chisinau, December 12 (Infotag). The Polish East-European Center for Democracy is helping the Moldovan press to develop quicker. To this end, a project called “A Local Independent Newspaper as a Small Enterprise and an Advocacy Institution” was realized here.

Petru Macovei, the Executive Director of the Independent Press Association (API) of Moldova, told a news conference in Infotag today that courses of training for 24 journalists from 12 local newspapers had been organized. The training was conducted by Polish experts who helped the journalists to better understand the Western methods of cooperation and of influence on local governance structures, the strategic planning of the information business, and newspaper development possibility.

The Polish experts selected 5 newspapers from out the said 12, to which a complex-like assistance was rendered, and their 10 employees paid a study visit to Poland. Also, each of these papers received an up-to-date computer with sophisticated licensed software, costing US$5 thousand each.

The Director of the Polish East-European Center for Democracy, former Polish Ambassador to Moldova Petr Marcineak said that over the years of his work in Moldova, he had come to understand the huge problems, including financial ones, the Moldovan mass media really face.

He said, “We know the central Moldovan press quite well, and have a poorer knowledge of the provincial press here. That was why we decided to realize a project to help the provincial publications, as the level of democracy largely depends on papers’ independence level, too”, said Petr Marcineak, and promised this is not the last such project in Moldova.

Polish media experts Agnieszka Nowinska and Arkadeusz Grushot, who took part in the news conference, assessed the Moldovan provincial press as active and independent.

In 2006, Poland’s assistance to Moldova has approached 1 million euros for 12 projects aimed, in particular, at the development of democracy in Moldova.