Olivier Basille, director of the European Union office for “Reporters
Without Borders”, declared that Albania needs to change the system for
the media. He added that Albania has a small market that could be easily
controlled by anyone thanks to pressure. Many journalists are obliged
to leave their professions or accept corruption.
“Unfortunately, Albania is very deep down in the annual index that we publish for the media freedom. I really love that country and I hope that one day it will join the European Union, because Albania deserves it and it is part of this family. On the same time, Albania is in a very bad position. It’s spot is lower than 100, and there are 180 in total. The first reason is about the way how the market works. Who organizes it? Who is the media owner in Albania? We still don’t have any answer to this. Without mentioning the means. There is this game in Albania with the advertisement system. We saw this with the elections, before and after. We saw the system that was raised by the Berisha government, but on the other hand, the opposition is making a similar game. This is not a matter that belongs to the left or the right, but to the organized market, so that politicians can become part of it. We insist that we cannot compare these countries with France, Great Britain and Germany, because those are bigger markets, even though you can find similarities”, Basille declared.
Based on the fines given to the media for slander, the director of the European Office of Reporters Without Borders notices the need of training judges in Balkan countries.
“Facts show that there is encouragement for the new legislation, new structures and reforms as regards the media rights, and this is a right because there are things that could change, especially when they are getting old. That’s how we succeed with some new texts that support the media for some criteria in Balkan, and this makes the new laws for some cases even better than in some European Union members and we applaud this. But on the same time, they organize structures to prosecute the media and fines are often not corresponding to the problems that are raised. There are fines mounting from 10.000 EUR, 100.000 EUR and 500.000 EUR, or even 1 million for some countries. Millions of EUR are collected from fines against the media for slander. I’m not saying that there is no false information in Balkan, but that the system cannot be organized like this”, Basille declared.
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