The National Association of Media and Publishers, the most representative body of the press and publishing sector in Morocco, has followed with great astonishment the attempts at nuisance and blindly hostile resistance to the proposed reform of the field of media, press and publishing in Morocco, as well as measures aimed at strengthening its role in the defense of the country’s strategic issues, in parallel with all the steps aimed at strengthening the achievements for the benefit of professionals , establishments and companies in the sector. ANME has also noted isolated partisan and professional attempts to curb the momentum of the new reform project, in order to serve agendas that are no secret to anyone, mainly the desire to maintain a sterile status quo and to perpetuate a situation of uncertainty from which the press sector has suffered for more than 12 years. These blocking attempts reached their climax at the time of the proposal of the bill establishing a provisional commission for the management of the affairs of the sector offering a way out of the crisis situation in which the former government supervision plunged the sector. , by ratifying unthoughtful, unsustainable regulations without any legislative perspective, with the sole objective of controlling the sector and locking it down.
ANME, driven by its strong and sincere desire to build a better future for the press and publishing sector in the Kingdom, highly welcomes the initiative of this bill and insists on the following points:
1- ANME welcomes the adoption by the Council of Government on April 13, 2023, of the bill creating the provisional commission for the management of the affairs of the press and publishing sector, aimed at avoiding the non-regulatory situation from which all future decisions of the National Press Council will be taken. The latter having failed to organize the elections for the renewal of his authorities, despite the exceptional extension of his mandate.
2- the Association considers the constitution of this provisional commission and precisely in the current context, as a guarantee of the continuity of management of the sector in the near perspective of finding lasting solutions to the dysfunctions currently experienced by the National Press Council in the level of renewal of its bodies.
3- ANME considers that this concerted solution between the government and professionals is an emergency measure capable of bringing the sector out of voluntary vagueness in order to protect it from outdated and henceforth unacceptable vicious practices.
4- ANME reaffirms its commitment to its initial position of reforming the sector, through the establishment of a legal and regulatory mechanism resulting from a consultation process and a comprehensive and in-depth diagnosis of its current situation and shortcomings from which it suffers. This is what the Association is determined to support and contribute to.
5- ANME qualifies the exits and attempts to break the momentum of the reform, as isolated and minority hostage-taking attempts aimed at preserving individual interests contrary to the general interest of the profession, where all good wills are called to be gathered around the supreme objective of the defense of the profession and the sector, in transparency and union, far from desperate conspiracies.
Done in Casablanca, April 14