On 16 May, 235 members of the Verkhovna Rada voted to approve the law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine ‘On Public Television and Radio Broadcasting’” concerning the actions of the state-owned enterprise “Ukrainian Studio of Television and Film” or “UkrTelefilm” (Law No. 4232 by Viktoria Siumar, Oleksandr Opanasenko, Olena Kondratyuk, Olha Chervakova, Svitlana Zalishchuk, Hryhorii Shverk, and Yuriy Pavlenko).

The law was drafted in response to the actions of the state-owned enterprise “UkrTelefilm”, which was included on the list of entities that would form a future public broadcaster. From December 2015 UkrTelefilm blocked the public broadcasting reform and did not allow public officials to examine and check it’s financial and business documents. This sabotage became the subject of several meetings of the Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information of the parliament.

The adopted law provides that state enterprise UkrTelefilm will be converted into a public joint-stock company (100% of which is state-owned), after which it will join the already formed National Public Television and Radio Company of Ukraine.

The procedure for converting UkrTelefilm into a public joint-stock company will be further decided by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine