The Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information recommends that the Parliament should adopt in the repeated second reading and in entirety the bill on Public Television and Radio Broadcasting in Ukraine

Information Department of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Secretariat
02 October 2013, 16:59

 The bill (Reg. No. 1076) determines the order of establishment and activity of Public Television and Radio Broadcasting in view of “ensuring the right to freedom of expression, obtaining of unbiased information about important social events and meeting of other informational needs of society”. 

When scrutinizing the bill for the repeated second reading, the Committee upheld a number of amendments form the subjects of legislative initiative.

Particularly, the Cabinet of Ministers shall set up a legal entity of public law the “National Public television and Radio Company of Ukraine” (NSTU) on the basis of National Television Campaign of Ukraine, National Radio Campaign of Ukraine, State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (DTRK) “World Service “Ukrainian Television and Radio Broadcasting”, DTRK “Kultura”, regional DTRK, DTRK “Krym”, Kyiv DTRK, Sevastopol DTRK, the Ukrainian TV Films studio “Ukrtelefilm” and the Ukrainian National News Agency “Ukrinform”.   

The bill determines principles of the NSTU operational policy.

The document includes a provision under which, any interference on the part of state authorities, bodies of local self-government and their officials, as well as NGOs into the NSTU’s activity will be prohibited.

It is suggested establish that NSTU shall be financed at the cost of the State Budget of Ukraine and shall constitute not less that 0,2% of State Budget expenditures of the previous year.