Ruling party MP says N1, Nova are pirate TVs

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Senior ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) MP Nebojsa Bakarec lasshed out N1 and Nova S, calling them “pirate TV stations”.

“N1 and Nova S are pirate media privileged by Luxembourg and untouchable to our authorities. (United Group co-owner Dragan) Solak’s media are brutally violating the Law on Electronic Media and Law on Advertising,” the SNS MP said. Bakarec, who chairs parliament’s Culture and Media Committee has made offensive remarks about what the authorities call “Solak’s tycoon media” in the past.

N1 and Nova S are part of United Group.

Speaking at Sunday’s meeting of the Culture and Media Committee Baarec said: “Why should only Serbia not allow the promotion and development of its best company, the Telekom? What should the state do, promote Solak’s private company United Media? It has every right to operate on this market but I wonder why that company has greater rights than the state Telekom? It does not.”

Speaking about the draft media laws submitted by the government following protests against parts of those laws that allow the state-owned Telekom Serbia to own media outlets despite pledges to the opposite by the authorities, Bakarec said that the laws are excellent and pro-European.

According to him, those laws “guarantee freedom of thought and expression and media freedom in line with the highest European Union standards”.

Bakarec said that the law on information introduced in 2009 before the SNS came to power was “the worst information law ever adopted in Europe which, he claims, was criticized by the OSCE, European Commission, Ombudsman and the Constitutional Court which ruled it unconstitutional.

The SNS MP said that the draft laws protect Telekom Serbia.