EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre (left) and Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych

EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre offered solidarity and assistance to the National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU) and legal advice on a new media law.

In two days of meetings in Kiev, she also had talks with Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych and discussions on how to promote public service media in Ukraine with the ambassadors of the Council of Europe and the European Union in Kiev.

On 18 March, members of the nationalist Svoboda party, including three MPs, burst violently into the office of acting NTU Director General Alexander Panteleymonov and forced him to resign. Nine days later the government appointed Zurab Alasania as Director General in his place.

Ms Deltenre met Mr Panteleymonov, who has now returned to NTU as a deputy director general, to express her sympathy. She also offered the support and solidarity of the EBU – also through the Union’s Partnership Programme - to Mr Alasania.

The EBU DG told the deputy prime minister, who belongs to the Svoboda party, that she expects Ukraine authorities to apply the rule of law to the attack on Mr Panteleymonov.

Mr Sych, who is also a member of Svoboda, said the incident had been regrettable, and one that he did not personally support. He attributed it to a “post-revolutionary state of enthusiasm”, and said he believed the competent authorities would take measures that would enable a move from “destruction to construction”.

A draft media law foreseeing the merger of NTU and the National Radio Company of Ukraine (NRCU) within a new national public service broadcaster has been held up in Ukraine’s Parliament for more than a year, but there are indications that it will soon be approved in second reading.

Ms Deltenre discussed the EBU’s comments on the draft text with Member of Parliament Andriy Shevchenko, and these will be discussed with the chairman of the parliamentary media committee on 15 April.

She also offered Mr Alasania the strategic support of the EBU in merging with NRCU and a network of regional broadcasters, should the law be adopted.