GOVERNMENT MOVES NEW MEDIA LAW

ZAGREB, April 15 (Hina) - The Croatian government has decided that the new media law will retain a provision prohibiting the concentration of publishers which would exceed 40 percent of the circulation market share of general news dailies and weeklies.#L# The government sent the new media bill to parliament for urgent discussion on Thursday. Under the bill, media publishers would have to report every intention to concentrate on the market. This concentration would be evaluated under the law and other regulations on the protection of market competition. The new law, however, will retain the provision prohibiting any concentration whereby publishers participating in it would hold more than 40 percent of the newspapers market. Failure to report their intention to concentrate could cost publishers one million kuna. The new media law is part of a package that needs to be adjusted to European standards. The government sent it into urgent parliamentary procedure because the current media law goes out of force on April 30 by a decision of the Constitutional Court, which repealed it because parliament had not adopted it with the required majority. (EUR1 = 7.5 kuna) (Hina) ha sb