Community media in Andalusia (Spain) will be acknowledged in the Civic Participation Law

April, 28th, 2014. After a meeting between policy makers and different community radio organizations, the new draft of the Andalusian Law on Civic Participation should include some references about the importance of community radio in democratic processes.

The Spanish Community Media Federation (ReMC) and the community radio Radiópolis (Sevilla) met with some politicians in charge of developing a new Law of Civic Participation (currently still a draft).

The main purpose of this meeting has been to continue the dialogue with political parties and decision makers of the regulatory bodies, and foster the need of explicitly including  a reference to the importance of community radios as essential tools for citizenship´s participation in democratic processes. ReMC and Radiópolis highlighted the importance of a proper regulation, in especially related to broadcasting licenses allocation for community radios, as well as a formal recognition of the values of this kind of media as participatory tools and not only as communication tools.

Policy makers have been very interested to know about European audiovisual regulations and participatory issues, The Satalonian example has been mentioned. At the same time, the representatives of community media have explained their opinions about how this kind of media outlets should be mentioned in the regulations:

-It is necessary to promote democratic information through public and community media.

-There is the need to promote and support the presence of community media in institutional campaigns about civic participation.

-Community media have to be acknowledged as participation tools, and the public bodies should promote their existence and development.

 In this process, AMARC Europe sent a letter to Andalusian policy makers, sharing its concerns about this regulation process in Spain.

The launch of the new Andalusiona bill on Civic Participation should take place by the end of the year.

 More info: María Navarro presidencia@radiopolis.org