Opposition: Digitalization strategy is incomplete

Minister Genc Pollo declared that this strategy will pass in government within the month, but four articles should be amended first.

“These are documents that will be replaced, and must be reflected at the new ones. We had a series of articles that need amends, according to the recent analysis. After the clarification of the open points, I hope that the strategy will pass at the Council of Ministers within this month”, Pollo declared.

The EU deadline for the complete digital broadcast is 2015, which demands more investments from the private and public operators.

Pollo declared that 28.6 million EUR are required only for the Albanian Television, and 30 million in total, if there will be 100% state subventions.

“The state subventions for supporting poor families is 100%, mounting up to 30 million EUR, and the subventions will be at 50%, it will be 14.7 million EUR, and the 7% for families in need would require 2.1 million EUR”, Pollo declared.

The SP Chairman of the Commission, Valentina Leskaj, and the Socialist MP Alfred Dalipi underlined that while the government has a digitalization strategy, the National Council of Radio Televisions keeps giving licenses for analogue broadcasts, which opposes the strategy.

“NCRT keeps releasing licenses, working incompletely and with a need to be restructured. These are connected with the digital strategy and the passing of this law. I am not sure how much this strategy has taken in consideration a reality that already exists in the media market, which means that when we make the digital strategy, it is not a strategy that should think only for the public operators, but also for the already existing market”, Leskaj declared.

The Media and Education Commission asked the improvement of the digital strategy, in order to open way to the law for audio-visual digital broadcasting.

The digitalization strategy should be fulfilled within three years, which is a condition for Albania’s integration. But the short time seems insufficient for planning a complete strategy that includes the entire market, not only the Albanian public television. Th market also has other digital operators that do not seem included in the digitalization strategy, which makes this project incomplete and opposed by all other national or local operators.

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