The Chairman of the Independent Media Commission (IMC) Mr. Jeton Mehmeti, Pristina, November 30, 2023 participated in the first meeting of the Steering Committee of the beneficiaries of the Horizontal Facility III, within the project "Horizontal facilitation for the Western Balkans and Turkey". The meeting was organized by the Office of the Council of Europe in Kosovo and the participating institutions were the beneficiary institutions of the projects and the Office of the European Union in Kosovo. The meeting was moderated by Mr. Tankut Soykan, Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Pristina. The institutions participating in the meeting presented their achievements from the projects and discussed issues of common interest and the challenges that remain to be addressed in the future and the need for continuous support. The topics discussed at the meeting were: Strengthening the Quality and Efficiency of Justice, Fight against discrimination and hatred and Protection of freedom of expression and media.

Chairman Mr. Mehmeti, in his introductory speech on the topic "Protection of freedom of expression and media", thanked the organizers for the cooperation so far and especially the support provided to the IMC as one of the institutions benefiting from the projects of the Council of Europe Office and that support such has been and remains essential in the work of the IMC. Following his speech Mr. Mehmeti presented the most important current activities of the IMC, in fulfillment of constitutional and legal obligations in the field of media, with special emphasis on the work being done regarding the process of harmonizing legislation with the new AVMS Directive (2018). . Also the amendment of the secondary legislation, where the most important point remains the raising of the transparency of media ownership and the IMC is finalizing the media ownership regulation. In this aspect, the support of the Office of the Council of Europe with external expertise or other forms of support is essential for the IMC. However, a current problem remains the lack of a legal framework for the regulation of online media, and the current legal vacuum has created problems that are expected to be solved with the new Law on IMC, which will be harmonized under the new AVMS Directive. As for the topic of discrimination and hate speech, IMC has managed to create a high media standard in cooperation with the media it regulates, where so far there are no identified cases related to hate speech or discrimination in the media. While an environment with highly developed media pluralism has been created, with media from all communities living in Kosovo and broadcasting in their languages.

As for the challenges, in order to address them, the continuation of support from the Office of the Council of Europe, but also from other organizations, remains very necessary for the IMC. In this direction, IMC has submitted the request to be an observer member in ERGA (European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services), as are the other countries of the region, not members of the EU, and here we need the support of the Office of the European Union in Kosovo and other actors in the field of media.

At the end of the meeting, the organizers pledged that they will continue to advance support for local authorities towards the advancement of strategic reforms in the areas of human rights, rule of law and further alignment with the relevant European standards.