Conference "EU Support to Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Media", a follow-up of last year's regional "Speak Up" conference in Brussels, is held in Skopje on Thursday.
The conference, organised by the EU-funded project for Technical Assistance for Civil Society Organisations (TACSO), aims at motivating civil society organizations to actively engage in the public debate related to freedom of expression, media reforms and freedom of speech.
EU Ambassador Aivo Orav said that after Wednesday's announcement by the opposition that it would boycott the early parliamentary elections he looked at his speech and realized nothing could be changed, since the state of freedom of speech and expression is not good.
"The freedom of expression and media environment remains a serious challenge. Lack of balanced and fair reporting, censorship of journalists who do not have equal access to public information, no independence of the regulatory body, media financing is not sufficiently transparent, reporting of the public broadcasting service is not adequate, while the journalist community is partitioned", said Orav.
Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services director Zoran Trajcevski referred to hate speech on the internet, but also the agency's activities on fines over hate speech in the past decade.
The event included the presentation of recently granted EU-projects supporting freedom of expression and media.