Interview with Mr. Jasha Lange,
Executive Secretary of the Media Task Force
By Roland Brunner, Medienhilfe Ex-Jugoslawien
How
do you feel about the results of this
meeting and what do you expect to happen next?
Jasha
Lange: I would say
that it was a good meeting, I think that people were pleased with the fact that
there were documents on the table, which they could discuss. It seems that we
have reached an agreement on all these documents. That’s what I had hoped. It
means that the foundations are laid, the terms of references are there, the
strategies are there. The next step is to see carefully whether there are any
projects which meet all the criteria and can be proposed for funding to some of
the donors here.
Seeing the process speeding up
already raised quite some expectations. At the same time there aren’t any
mechanisms really defined yet about procedures and implementation. How are you
going to work on that?
We
always try to damp expectations, but sometimes it’s not possible. It’s true
for Serbia that the expectations are high, but in other countries actually
people expect very little anymore of the Stability Pact. When I’m meeting
people, I always say, don’t have high expectations, there will be a limited
number of projects, rather some bigger ones than small individual projects,
because that’s the work of other organizations which are much better in this.
That’s what I continue to say and that’s what I’m going to follow up in
the next period.
Many governments see the Stability
Pact as a decisive structure for their own decision making on support. But as we
understand, the Media Task Force doesn’t intend to cover all the media in the
area. It rather limits itself to what would be considered some few strategic
regional projects. Important
projects that will not meet these criteria and be approved by the Stability Pact
might find it difficult to get funding. How do you see this two things going
together? Obviously there is also a need for bilateral support besides the Media
Task Force.
I think
that it is right that there are criteria, because if there wouldn’t be any,
the whole process would be less transparent and understandable, and you could
have a lot of discussions about why was this project not and this project yes.
There should be criteria because this makes it open and transparent for
everybody to see what is going on. Also the fact that projects are sent around
to all the members makes it open and transparent.
If you
look at the criteria, it says ‘regional’, that means that something that is
purely national will not directly stand as Stability Pact project. But, that’s
where we didn’t get to today. I wanted to discuss that. I think that this is
something I’m going to do at the next meeting or in the next period. We have
to see. what we are going to do with projects that are not regional, that are
national, but they land on my desk and also on the desks of all the members. My
feeling at the moment is that when we are really convinced that a project is
sound and that it is good and a lot of other people advice positively on it,
then we should send it around. But then not as a Stability Pact project, but
generally as a good project of which donors should be aware. But that is not yet
decided, that’s really, I’m thinking about what is the best way and I
haven’t decided yet on it. But also for bilateral support there is and there
will be a need.
see also the Interviews with
participants of the Stability Pact’s Media Task Force - National Working
Groups
source: MHxJU
published by: Roland Brunner rbr@medienhilfe.ch
date of release on this site: 14-10-2001
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