SARAJEVO, 28 May 2019 – Representatives of parliaments, regulatory authorities, civil sector and management of public service media in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia have agreed on the common principles for funding of PSM in the Western Balkans that set the best practice guidelines for regulating this area in line with the European standards.

The above common funding principles for PSM in the Western Balkans were agreed upon and adopted by all key stakeholders representing the six Western Balkan countries at the regional meeting on PSM Funding held in Sarajevo on 28 May 2019.

The principles have the aim of establishing an independent, sustainable, adequate and predictable funding framework for the quality and future-driven functioning of Public Service Media in the Western Balkans and of supporting countries’ endeavours to align their PSM with European standards and best practices and support membership in the EU.

The participants of the regional meeting also expressed their will to follow up the implementation of the above-mentioned principles with the aim of accession to the EU by 2025. The progress in the implementation of these principles will be measured and evaluated annually.

According to the expert analyses produced by the European Broadcasting union that were presented at the meeting, public service media in the Western Balkans, have been through several iterations of developing an appropriate funding model, and still a number of them face financial challenges, crisis of public trust and vulnerabilities to political pressures.

The initiative on setting the common funding principles is part of an EU funded programme of technical assistance to public service media in the Western Balkans which aims to contribute to the media reform and professional development of PSM in the region and strengthen their ability to produce increasingly pluralistic, independent and accountable content. The project is implemented by the consortium led by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) together with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the Austrian Public Broadcaster (ORF), the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Eurovision News Exchange for South-East Europe (ERNO).

Full text of Common funding principles can be found HERE.