Media organization protest after mandatory TV tax is skipped by law

More Romanian media organizations are protesting after the silent adoption by Deputy Chamber of a Social Democrat Party initiative of eliminating the obligation to pay a tax for the State TV, according to Hotnews.ro

The Social Democratic Party initiative, aiming to eliminate the obligation of paying a tax for State TV and that was silently adopted by Deputy Chamber, is generating protests among the media organizations.

The media organizations are showing, in a press release published on Tuesday, that the initiative is a danger for de facto existence of the public TV and they ask the Senate, the decision chamber in the matter, to reject the project.

According to ReporterVirtual, the organizations that are signing the protest are Romanian Center for Independent Journalism, ActiveWatch – Press Monitoring Agency and Romanian Federation of Journalists Mediasind.

The Social Democratic Party’s initiative was launched in November 2010, one of the arguments being that the cable operators offer in their packages all the State TV channels, perceiving taxes from their clients.