The general objective of the project is to develop and strengthen the legal and regulatory framework for independent mass media in the Republic of Moldova and to monitor the implementation of the regulations in force, in particular, by the Audiovisual Council (CA).
The project aims to implement the following objectives:
- Ensuring the functionality of the Working Group for the improvement of media legislation;
- Improving the primary legislation regulating media activity;
- Improving the secondary legislation regulating the audiovisual sector.
The immediate objective of the project is to contribute to the modification of the Moldovan legislation in the field of mass media, in accordance with the governance standards of mass media and the Internet.
The project involves the continuation of the work of the Consultative Working Group (WG) for the improvement of mass media legislation and the team of permanent experts within the Electronic Press Association (APEL) in order to provide projects for amendments and/or expertise to the primary legislation, as well as to the elaborated secondary legislation of the CA and monitoring the activity of the CA in order to assess how the regulations in force are applied in practice and to formulate appropriate recommendations.
The following activities will be implemented within the project:
- Updating, if necessary, the composition of the WG for the improvement of media legislation;
- Elaboration of the agenda and organization of WG meetings;
- Systematization of proposals made during WG meetings and final drafting of amendments;
- Provision of amendments to the specialized parliamentary committee and other interested bodies/authorities;
- Expertise of CA’s normative acts;
- Providing to the CA the expertise of normative acts with proposals and recommendations;
- Development of methodologies for monitoring the activity of the CA in elections (local in 2023, presidential in 2024 and parliamentary in 2025);
- Monitoring the activity of the CA in the predetermined periods;
- Preparation of monitoring reports and their presentation: the one in 2023 during a meeting with the CA members at the institution’s headquarters, and the ones in 2024 and 2025 – in round tables.
The project is implemented between October 1, 2023 and August 31, 2025 by APEL with the support of International Media Support (IMS), within the New Democracy Fund (NDF) launched in 2021 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark to support civil society efforts to strengthen democratic development in the states of the eastern neighborhood of the EU – Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
