Taras Petriv believes public broadcasting could begin next year

Taras Petriv, Chair of the National Commission for the Affirmation of Freedom of Speech and the Development of Information under the President of Ukraine, says that public broadcasting could be introduced in 2008 if the necessary spending for this is allocated in next year’s State Budget. He says that the first step, the signing of the Declaration of Cooperation on Introducing Public Broadcasting in Ukraine on Thursday was vital.

He explains the fact that public broadcasting has not yet emerged in Ukraine as due to the lack until now of clear coordination between the state structures responsible for the mass media. He believes that this problem has been eliminated by the Declaration.

Taras Petriv stresses that the strategy plan for developing public broadcasting will be based on the European model, as well as on the Lithuanian and Georgian experience. “Careful planning will be carried out to determine how to implement this in Ukraine so as to avoid the situation in Russia where what they have has nothing to do with real public broadcasting”.

The Council of Europe Coordinator on work with the Ukrainian media, Isabella Khruslinska welcomes Ukraine’s wish to develop public television and radio broadcasting and hopes that after two years of making declarations, this idea will finally be implemented in practice.