The Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM) reacted Thursday to the decision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to spend public money in order to promote the country’s OSCE Chairpersonship in private media.

As pointed out by AJM, according to publicly available information, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will spend around 100,000 euros for promotional activities related to the chairmanship of the OSCE, for which an agreement has been concluded with a private marketing company.

The Association warns that the practice of paying for government campaigns in the media with citizens’ money, apart from being illegal and contrary to previous government decisions, may also encourage other public institutions to apply it, which would further damage the fragile media market.