15 March 2016 the Members of Parliament (MPs) have registered the Draft Law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine On Public Television and Radio Broadcasting” regarding the procedure of joining of the state-owned company “Ukrainian Studio of Television Films “Ukrtelefilm” (the project No 4232, the MPs Viktoria Siumar, Oleksander Opanasenko, Olena Kondratiuk, Olga Chernakova, Svitlana Zalishchuk, Grygoriy Shverk, Yuriy Pavlenko). The draft law was developed in a participation of Media Law Institute.

According to the existing law, the public join-stock agency “National Public TV and Radio Company of Ukraine” shall be formed on the basis of state television and radio broadcasting companies and “Ukrtelefilm”. As on today, the majority of regional state television and radio broadcasting companies are in the final stage of merging and transformation becoming a constituting part of Public Service Broadcaster. However, the reform was purposefully blocked by the actions of “Ukrtelefilm” that during all this time did not allow public officials to conduct planned inspections on its premises. Furthermore, on the premises of the company, there are objects that were the reasons of litigations for many years that eventually led to a de-facto halt of the public broadcasting reform.

In February 2016, a number of media organisations, in particular, Media Law Institute together with Independent Media Council addressed the state authority demanding to take appropriate action to abolish sabotage of the reform.

A new regulation foresees the state-owned company “Ukrtelefilm” shall be transformed into a public company and afterwards joint to the already created on the basis of state television and radio broadcasting companies National Public TV and Radio Company of Ukraine.

The procedure of reorganisation of the state-owned company “Ukrainian Studio of Television Films “Ukrtelefilm” into a public company “Ukrtelefilm” shall be defined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

The draft law in Ukrainian can be found here http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb2/webproc4_1?pf3511=58404