Senior ‘European Solidarity’ party MP Iryna Herashchenko stated on Facebook that the European Commission and the Council of Europe criticized the new draft law on media.

She added that the Verkhovna Rada has not published these conclusions and plans to put the draft to a vote on the next plenary day.

According to her, instead of an important media law, ‘we can get a law on censorship, with unlimited rights of the National Council, which is completely dependent on Bankova [President’s office]’.

Herashchenko noted that the draft law received critical conclusions from both the European Commission and the Council of Europe.

‘I repeatedly called on the head of the Verkhovna Rada to make these conclusions public so that colleagues would realize that the project does not meet EU requirements’, the MP claims.

Draft Law No. 2693-d ‘On Media’ was registered in the Verkhovna Rada on December 27, 2019, and in May 2020, the parliament sent it for a repeated first reading. The new act should become a comprehensive document that will replace several media laws.