BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

26.01.2006

EU Belarus radio deal goes to German-Russian duo

By Andrew Rettman

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission has chosen a German-Russian consortium to broadcast news into Belarus for the next two years, but doubts remain over the suitability of the Russian firm in the contract.

The consortium comprises German public relations firm Media Consulta and Russian terrestrial TV station Centre TV, with Belarusian opposition NGO Democratic Belarus calling the choice "surprising."

"It is a well known fact that CTV has lucrative contracts with president Alexander Lukashenko's national media agency. The commission has been well informed about this," Democratic Belarus' Brussels chief Olga Stuzhinskaya said.

Commission spokeswoman Emma Udwin explained that Media Consulta will run the project using subcontractors while Centre TV will be a sleeping partner "playing no active role."

She added that Centre TV effectively handed over its role to another Russian firm, RTVi, which is based in Germany and has satellite broadcasting capacity, to make it harder for Minsk to cut off broadcasts from day one.

The terms of the ?2 million commission contract are confidential however, with Media Consulta relaying all questions back to Brussels.

The other subcontractors will be staff from Polish and Lithuanian radio, independent Belarusian journalists as well as Belarusian and European NGOs.

The consortium will use TV, radio and internet to broadcast "independent, reliable and balanced" information about Belarus and the EU for two years starting February, in time for special shows covering the March presidential elections.

Half of the programs will be in Belarusian and half in Russian.

The commission's Ms Udwin said that Brussels will set out "guidelines" on what kind of themes the programs should cover and how frequent they should be, with the contract coming under review before the two years are up.

But she stressed that the commission will not interfere with editorial content leaving reporters free to "follow their journalistic instincts."

History of criticism

Minsk has in the past called the project a waste of time, objecting to what it sees as Cold War type pro-western propaganda directed against Mr Lukashenko.

NGOs and MEPs have also cast doubt on the effectiveness of the scheme, saying it comes too late and will not penetrate into Lukashenko's rural heartland, where there is no satellite TV or internet.

"It is a waste of money," Polish conservative member Bogdan Klich said, explaining that any broadcast coming with an EU label will be spun by the Minsk regime to earn mistrust.

Belarus opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich indicated in Warsaw on Wednesday that he "really regrets" the station has not started broadcasts yet as "every day counts" in the run up to the vote, Polish daily Rzeczpospolita writes.

The paper also quotes commission official Claude Veron-Reville predicting the EU would add names to the visa ban list currently imposed on six Belarus politicians and freeze Belarus financial assets in the union.

But she explained that Belarusian politicians don't tarvel to the EU anyway and Minsk keeps very little of its money in the bloc.

"We cannot go any further, because in that case the Belarusian people will turn away from Europe," she said.

Source:

http://euobserver.com/9/20776

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