The two-day event, entitled "Media Democracy in Southeast Europe: Current Problems and Prospects", gathered publishers, editors, journalists and media experts. It was held under the auspices of Croatian President Stjepan Mesic and organised by the German media concern WAZ, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Southeast European Media Organisation (SEEMO), and local partners, including Hina.
Politicians have a task to establish the legislative system, invest into education and strengthen civil society and the judiciary, said Erhard Busek, Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe.
Speaking at a debate on politics and the media, Busek said that media monopoly was intolerable.
Venelina Gotscheva, editor of the Bulgarian paper "24 Hours", reported about the unprecedented pressure a Bulgarian political party was exerting on journalists through its own TV network. Participants in the debate agreed that in this case the media and publishing companies had failed to demonstrate solidarity, while institutions of civil society failed to respond timely.
Bodo Hombach, who was Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe from 1999 to 2001, and who has been WAZ director since 2002, said that there was no other mechanism except for transparency to discipline politicians.
The media are the only mechanism that can ensure the necessary transparency and that is why they cannot live in peace with politicians, Hombach said.
As for ethics, Busek said that reporters today were paying too much attention to persons who did not deserve media attention in any way.
In his address at the event on Wednesday, President Stjepan Mesic warned that today's journalism was to a great extent sensationalist and trivial.
Danko Plevnik, a reporter for Slobodna Dalmacija daily, spoke about the relationship between the European Union and the media. He said that journalists were complaining about political pressure, but were forgetting that they too should exert pressure on politicians and develop the EU as a global political, economic and military force, and not only as a logistical support base for the United States and NATO.