Minister vs. Citizen

Tijanic spoke to VREME about the reasons why he resigned once the election fraud protest broke out:

"First, I wanted to stick to the law and put frequencies up for public auction every year so that anyone interested could set up a radio or TV station. Second, I wanted to enable licensing for all media in Serbia which meet the basic professional criteria - from Radio B 92 to local stations. Third, I was absolutely against the practice of other ministries (in party uniform or not) banning media across Serbia while leaving the responsibility to the information ministry. Fourth, I was fiercely against limiting the entry of foreign journalists to the country and the drawing up of lists of unsuitable journalists. I think the Serbian government does not have the right to choose the press. All accredited journalists should have the right to access to all the legal bodies of the republic. Fifth and most important, I think the Serbian media have the write to report on events in Serbia. Since I couldn’t influence any of those things, and I realized that after just 15 days in office, I waited two or three months for a big enough reason to leave the government. That big reason were my differences with the government and the decision makers in this country over assessments of the essence of the protest over the local elections. Since I was stopped from reacting the way I wanted to I resigned."

VREME: Where you openly prevented or not?

TIJANIC: "Both openly and covertly. When you join the establishment you realize that there is a code of behavior there. You are discreetly told that there are things you won’t be involved in and that those things are in the exclusive jurisdiction of certain people in the media and others in the authorities. It’s understood that you’ll respect the code and won’t enter their jurisdiction."

VREME: For example?

TIJANIC: "The information minister has no jurisdiction over the Serbian state TV (RTS). Any interference by the minister in the RTS is considered rude behavior which could lead to his clinical death."

VREME: A working version of the new law on public information has been presented. Was there any mention of a new law during your time in office?

TIJANIC: "There was talk of a new law for a long time. The Serbian Socialist Party (SPS) had a draft which Ivica Dacic worked on. I asked for the translation of several west European laws on the media and I wanted to join in changing the law. I realized that the law isn’t the essence of the matter. Without a real change in the attitude of the authorities on laws, any change of existing laws or adoption of new ones is an illusion. I gave up on the whole thing."

VREME: What do you think about the new law?

TIJANIC: "Like all our laws, this one is declaratively all right. One thing that sticks out is the intention to prevent the creating of a parallel national system of information which could be a rival to the RTS or large newspaper publishers because this law prevents any private TV station from covering more than 25% of Serbia and prevents any private newspaper publisher from controlling over 15-20% of the print media. Fears of a monopoly are understandable but in a state where everything is based on monopolies, an effort to prevent the monopoly of private owners while leaving the RTS its exclusivity of covering all of Serbia is ridiculous. Also, the law does not envisage the state keeping only the RTS first channel and privatizing the second and third, which would be a normal thing to do, or making them national, not state in some other way. This law has failed to do all that. Its formulation on "associations which rally the majority of journalists" practically excludes independent associations from decisions on the criteria needed to get the status of journalist. And finally, it says explicitly that everyone who gets any help from abroad - and many media in Serbia can’t survive without that help - have to state on every copy or before every broadcast that they are publishing or printing thanks to people from abroad leaving them open to a national jury which will declare them to be traitors."