A law on the media in Ukraine, signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday 29 December, is causing controversy. While the Ukrainian authorities are defending a measure that is part of their future accession to the European Union, organisations and unions in the sector believe that it limits freedom of the press.
One point of contention is the extension of the powers of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting, whose members are appointed by the president’s administration and members of parliament. The Council will now be able, for example, to close down news websites that are not registered as such, reports The Kyiv Independent.
Proposed in July 2022, the law caused an initial outcry among national, European and international press organisations. The General Secretary of the European Federation of Journalists, Ricardo Gutiérrez, described it as “worthy of the worst authoritarian regimes”. “Media regulation should be implemented by a body independent of the government and its objective should be media independence, not media control”, he added. Despite downward revisions to the powers granted to the Council, Mr Gutiérrez told the New York Times that it “remained in contradiction with European press freedom standards”.
On the contrary, the government argues that the law aims to meet the European Commission’s requirements for regulation of the media sector in view of the country’s accession to the EU (see EUROPE 12974/1). (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)