Project financing of media is going to be a challenge for Serbian local self-governments, but they have to set up well-defined requirements of competition and determine what the public interest is, said Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia Michael Davenport addressing the representatives of local self-governments at the Assembly of the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities.
“Fair and transparent financing of local media, as well as objective and impartial information should become a key principle of local media,” Davenport said and urged local authorities to create conditions so as to inform citizens objectively.
“In the last couple of days, Ministry of Culture and Information have sent rulebooks for project financing to all local self-governments, meaning all of the preconditions needed to prepare your budgets and procedures aimed at new form of media financing are now at your disposal,” Davenport said.
Also, communication in minority languages should be supported from local budgets, Ambassador said and stressed that the EU Delegation was ready to support towns and municipalities to implement regulations in the area of project financing of media.
Speaking about the cooperation with towns and municipalities in Serbia, Davenport said that some of the EU-funded projects were cancelled due to change in local governments and that should not occur anymore because citizens’ interests, and not party politics, should be at the forefront.
As an example of a cancelled project, Davenport mentioned the construction of “Green Zone” in South Serbia, about which he said was near Corridor 10 and arose investors’ interest.
He stressed that due to change in local governments other municipal projects were cancelled as well, such as the construction of waste water treatment plant and recycling centre, but he did not specify the municipalities in question.
