The need for comprehensive reforms of the media sector in the Republic of North Macedonia, which has existed for quite some time if not from the very moment the media system was created, was formally recognized and condensed in the recommendations listed by two important documents – the so-called “Priebe Report” (Recommendations of the Senior Experts’ Group on systemic Rule of Law issues related to the communications interception revealed in Spring 2015), and the Urgent Democratic Reforms document prepared by the European Commission.

The reforms need to ensure adequate solutions for the open issues in several areas – sustainability of the media sector, independence of media from political and economic pressure, ensuring that the citizens shall have access to quality information, education and entertainment/cultural contents.

The Media Development Centre, with support from the MATRA Programme of the Foreign Ministry of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, under the auspices of the “Monitoring and Policy for Reformed Media Sector”, monitors the implementation of the media legislation by the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) and the Programming Council of MRT, as well as the overall process of media reforms. At the same time, under this project, MDC will prepare comments to all eventual legislative proposals and policy briefs and documents that will aim to assist the process of achievement of reform goals and objectives.

The other priorities set by the Government, the focus on foreign relations issues and the coming elections have all contributed for reforms of media sector to proceed at a painfully slow rate, lagging far behind the initially outlined timeframe. In addition, the reform process and the work of AVMS and MRT were influenced by the Parliamentary Elections (scheduled first for April 12 and then moved to July 2020) and by the crisis caused by the Covid 19 pandemic.

This Report covers the period from July 1 through December 31, 2020.

This document was prepared with support from the MATRA Programme of the Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The contents of this publication are sole responsibility of the Media Development Centre and shall not be understood, in any way or fashion, to reflect the view and positions of the Foreign Ministry of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The full Report is available at the following link:

Monitoring Report 1st Quarter of 2020