The Council of Europe has systematically supported the process of establishing public broadcasting in Ukraine.Transforming the state broadcasters into the public service broadcasting channels is in line with relevant Council of Europe standards and is one of the Ukraine’s obligations to the Council of Europe enshrined in Resolution 1466 (2005) “On honouring the obligations and commitments of Ukraine”.Assistance with setting a fully-fledged public broadcaster in accordance with the new legislation adopted in April 2014 and March 2015 will remain a crucial priority as enshrined in the current Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine for 2015-2017.

Ukraine has entered a crucial and decisive phase of launching a public broadcasting system. The creation of the legal entity of public broadcaster in Ukraine is expected in the beginning of 2016. However, the legal framework for the media and the capacity of the future public broadcasting organisation of Ukraine to produce quality content needs to be substantially improved. Moreover, it is critically important to have reformed regional chapters of the public broadcasting, which would follow the standards of the public broadcasting and would positively impact media environment at the regional level as Ukraine is just one step from the decentralisation reform.

On 27 January 2016, the Strategy for development of Ukraine’s legislation on freedom of expression and mass media activity in line with European standards has been adopted by the members of the Parliamentary Committee as a strategic document for revising Ukrainian legislation.

The Law of Ukraine “On Access to Public Information” has been operating since 2011. The Ukrainian Law is a strong one as measured by the RTI Rating and since 2011 the legal framework on access to public information has been substantially reinforced through adoption of amendments, however,  at the same time, as it is underlined by the national and CoE experts and civil society, there remain some problems in applying the Law in practice, due in part to some of the shortcomings in the legislation that need to be addressed taking into account the fact that the access to information-related issues are important anti-corruption conditionality.

1. Improved capacity of the public broadcasting system to manage the transition from a state-owned company. A model of the regional public broadcaster is developed based on the expert advice.
2. Capacity of the public broadcaster to enable the production of higher-quality programming is increased as a result of trainings, internal procedures for raising editorial and professional standards are developed and introduced.
3. Increased institutional capacity of the public broadcaster’s Supervisory Board and its Secretariat. Necessary regulations are developed based on the expert advice and training.
4. Improved understanding of the European standards and practices around media freedom and public broadcasting service among legislative and executive authorities.
5. Improved access to official documents and information held by public authorities to media professionals and general public, while individual rights to privacy and to control personal data protected.

Our main partners are the National Television Company of Ukraine (which is being transformed into the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine), the Parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information Policy, the National TV and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine, the State Committee on TV and Radio Broadcasting, Ukrainian Commissioner for human rights, civil society and media organizations, relevant professional associations.

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Contacts:
8 Illinska str., 8 entrance, 5th floor
04070 Kyiv, Ukraine
+380443399210