The pact was initiated by 14 media organizations all over Romania and signed by most candidates. They assumed the principles and guidelines suggested by the pact on guaranteeing the freedom of speech and increasing the responsibility of the press. The nine candidates that signed the above-mentioned pact are Traian Basescu, Mircea Geoana, Crin Antonescu, Sorin Oprescu, Kelemen Hunor, Remus Cernea, Constantin Ninel Potarca, Ovidiu Cristian Iane and Constantin Rotaru.
According to the above-mentioned source, they got an answer from candidate Eduard Manole, who did not say he totally agreed to the pact. “We have not received any answer from candidates George Becali and Corne liu Vadim Tudor. We are hailing the decision of the nine candidates to sign this document. We are voicing hope that the principles and guidelines included in the pact will not stay mere electoral promises and the candidates will support them as politicians irrespective of the result of the election,” reads the release mentioned before.
Some of the organizations that initiated the pact are ActiveWatch – the Press Monitoring Agency, the Centre for Independent Journalism, the Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism, the Employers’ Association of the Local Publishers, the Journalists’ Association in Romania, the MediaSind Romanian Federation of Journalists, the Romedia Employers’ Association of the Press in Romania.
According to the document mentioned above, during the mandate of Romania’s President, in keeping with the President’s constitutional role of watching the observance of the Constitution and the good functioning of the public authorities (Art 80 of the Constitution), the candidates pledge to support the right to the freedom of speech and the right to getting informed (Arts 30 and 31 of the Constitution), by using the legal means they have at their disposal.
The signatories of the pact also pledge to support the consolidation of the application of the law on the access to the information of public interest, also by guaranteeing and making easier the access of journalists and the public to the data in the Trade Register, by ensuring transparency in applying the law on public acquisitions, mainly by acquiring publicity and mass media products with public money, the change of the law on the radio and television public services in the sense of ensuring the political independence of the two institutions and guaranteeing their functioning in the public interest, the change into a norm setting document of the constitutional provision referring to the transparency of the sources financing the media companies, through the transparency of the ownership structures included, the consolidation of the legislation on preventing the excessive concentration of ownership in the mass media in order to prevent the cartel type understandings or the abuse of dominant position.
The nine candidates also pledge to support the media industry by means of fiscal policies suitable for guaranteeing the financial independence of the media institutions as they are applied in most European Union member states, to remove penal punishments for press offences and to sign, as President, the European Charter on Freedom of the Press.
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