In the opening part of the seminar, Mr. David Stulik, Press Officer of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, underlined that the questions of reforms in Ukrainian media environment had been discussed for decades by now, but unfortunately, there is no significant progress, therefore he stressed on the importance of the decisive reforms as they are anticipated not only by EU, but also by Ukrainians. Mr. Stulik reminded that one of the three priorities in the freedom of speech sphere, which are envisaged within EU-Ukraine Association Agenda, is the establishment of clear set of rules that would ensure balanced access to media for all elections candidates.

Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has developed the Recommendations to Member States on the Measures that Concern Media Coverage of Election Campaigns (in 1999 and 2007) on independence and functions on regulatory bodies in the sphere of broadcasting (in 2000). In these documents the Committee of Ministers draws attention of its member states to the role of the mass media during the elections and the importance of mechanism that would enable the regulator to perform its function in the efficient, independent and transparent way.

The results of the public media monitorings of the parliamentary election campaign in Ukraine show that the prepaid materials in the media are still wide spread.

For improving the capacity of the National Broadcasting Council the session dedicated to the challenges, international and best practices in the sphere of media in the run of elections was held by Rastislav Kuzel, Council of Europe expert (Slovak Republic). Mr. Kuzel was talking about the role of the regulatory bodies, monitoring, sanctions and the mechanism of the regulator work during the elections campaign. He also spoke on complains connected with the media issues and the ways of dealing with them, he also disclosed an issue of coping with prepaid materials and hidden advertising.

Mr. Kuzel gave a series of recommendations aimed on increasing the independence of National Broadcasting Council of Ukraine and strengthening its capacity to hold monitoring on media coverage of elections and usage of effective measures towards offenders of the later during the election campaign.

Mr. Andrzei Krayevski, expert of the Council of Europe (Poland), spoke on the freedom of speech issue and the Council of Europe’s and the European Union’s standards on this issue.

On the second day of the expert seminar, on 18 November, the participants narrowed down their discussions to the topics of the public broadcasting channel creation in Ukraine, switch from analogue to digital broadcasting in 2015 and organization of work of the representatives in the regions.

Mr. Zurab Alasania, the CEO of National Television Company of Ukraine, spoke about the steps already taken, current situation and tasks for creation of an effective system of public broadcasting. He informed the participants about the main directions of the public broadcaster reformation. According to these main directions working groups are identified, which are elaborating the best possible solutions on their issues. In particular, their work is connected with the definition of broadcast programs on different channels, the questions of organizational structure, frequencies and licenses, development and implementation of promo-actions, brand development, legislative initiatives, etc.  According to expert’s opinion, due to the creation of the public broadcaster there is a need to create 8 draft-laws, including the changes to the Budget Code of Ukraine.

Participants of the seminar showed great interest towards the topic of Ukraine’s transition from analogue to digital broadcasting in 2015. Mr. Oleh Chernysh, the member of National Broadcasting Council, who had moderated the anchoring section, had mentioned many complex aspects in this process.  In particular, these are connected with country-wide coverage by the Zeonbud company, phase-plan of analog signal disconnection, creation of digital multiplexes by Broadcasting, Radiocommunications and Television Concern, change of the design of the existing digital network after the first disconnections are made, signal coverage of the problematic areas, providing the set-top-boxes for citizens and others.

Also the top executives of the National Broadcasting Council answered participants’ questions. Among the topics discussed were: licensing of the broadcasting companies, elaboration of the new Broadcasting Sector Development Strategy, which is currently designed by the regulator, the questions of holding monitoring and inspections, changes to the legislature issued by National Broadcasting Council.