Becoming a European Citizen: Strengthening Euro/Atlantic Perspectives of Vojvodina / Moravia Media Cooperation

CDK cooperates in partnership with the Serbian non-profit organisation Centar za politiku i evroatlantsko partnerstvo (Centre for Politics and Euro-Atlantic Partnership) based in Novi Sad on the project entitled "Becoming a European Citizen: Strengthening Euro-Atlantic Perspectives of Vojvodina - Moravia Media Cooperation". The project was financed by the Open Society Fund Prague as part of the East-East programme. The project runs from April until August 2010.

The aim of the project is to support an international media cooperation leading to increased knowledge, professional capacities, and the effective exchange of information between journalists from both countries. Serbia wants to join the EU and NATO, and so wishes to improve awareness the country, of its life conditions, and the position and role of its numerous minorities and the perspectives they bring.

Project Outcomes

The project consists of two exchange visits for ten-member groups of journalists. The Czech journalists visited Serbia from the 18th to the 24th of April 2010; the Serbian journalists visited the Czech Republic from the 30th May to the 5th June 2010. Several reports and articles provided on the CDK and the Centar za politiku i evroatlantsko partnerstvo websites and in the Czech and Serbian media will be the main outcome of the project.

Czech Journalists in Serbia

A group of eight journalists visited Novi Sad in the province of Vojvodina from the 18th to the 24th of April 2010. The programme consisted of visits to local dailies, Radio TV Vojvodina, and cultural organisations of Slovak and Ruthenian minorities. The group also visited a Czech minority living in the area around the city of Bela Crkva close to the Romanian border, and a Croat minority in the city of Subotica. Journalists were able to meet with the President of Vojvodinian Parliament who answered their questions about the financing of the Serbian minority policy and the establishment of international relationships. Among the Czech media were representatives of Czech Television Ostrava, Czech Radio Pardubice, Daily Právo (Brno), and Mediafax Agency. The programme in Vojvodina was fully managed by the partner organisation.

Serbian Journalists in the Czech Republic

From 30th May to the 5th June 2010, CDK organised a programme for a ten-member group of Serbian journalists. Journalists represented local minority and cultural editions from RT Vojvodina, which broadcasts in ten minority languages, as well as from the daily Dnevnik, the Hungarian-language daily Magyar Szo, the Croatian-language weekly Hrvatska Rijec, and Radio Sunce, which broadcasts in Czech in Bela Crkva.

First, the group visited the South Moravian Regional Offices in Brno and was welcomed by Ilona Sokolová, a member of the Regional Board. They discussed the regional situation, its competences, and the decentralisation of the state administration of the Czech Republic. Ms Sokolová also spoke about issues regarding the Czech EU membership, the European Funds, and cooperation between the South Moravian Region and Serbia.

The journalists then met with a director of the Regional Development Agency South Moravia (RRAJM), Vladimír Gašpar, and with Igor Poledňák and Lubomír Šmíd, who also worked in RRAJM. They spoke about the June 2003 establishment of cooperation between the South Moravian Region and independent cities in the Sumadija region (the province of Vojvodina seemed too large). In 2003-2009 RRAJM supported more than 90 projects with a total sum over 82 million CZK. The projects focused on particular activities in the area of education (teaching Czech, stipend programmes for university students), agriculture (vineyards), infrastructure (roads, water pipes), trade (cooperation of companies) and tourism. RRAJM representatives shared the experience with pre-accession EU funds.

Since the Czech Republic had parliamentary elections that month, journalists were interested in its analysis and in clarification of the situation. Vít Hloušek, a political scientist from the Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University, provided them with information on this matter.

The journalists also discussed the topic of human rights protection with Jitka Seitlová, a deputy of the Defender of Public Rights. She introduced the Office and its competences and also mentioned several of the most serious cases that the Office had handled in recent years.

More than 25 minorities have lived in Vojvodina region for hundreds of years. The Hungarian minority is one of the largest. The Serbian journalists were interested in the position of minorities in the Czech Republic, particularly of the Hungarian minority. They visited the Hungarian Cultural and Information Centre, which was founded in 1995. Its goal is to provide citizens of the Hungarian minority living in the Brno region with cultural background, and to provide the general public complex services regarding Hungary.

The group also visited the Czech Constitutional Court and was welcomed by its Chief Justice Pavel Rychetský. After a short historical-philosophical introduction, he spoke about the role of the Court in the Czech Republic and about the Czech experience with the political and economical transition, privatisation and restitutions. This process is not yet finished in Serbia.

The journalists also met with their media colleagues, specifically with Hana Černohorská, editor-in-chief of the Brno editorial offices of the daily Mladá fronta Dnes. They also visited their colleagues at Czech TV Ostrava who had participated in the project and visited Serbia; they toured the premises and spoke with Ilja Racek, a director of the Ostrava studio. The journalists were able to compare the system of financing and the independence of the Czech media with that of Serbia.

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