News

During the meeting held in Santiago, Chile, the UNI Telefonica Global Union Alliance expressed its great concern about the situation that is happening in Argentina.

The President of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, through one of the many decrees of "urgent need" signed just over a month after he assumed the presidency of Argentina, annulled the Digital Argentina Act and amended the Media Law, which made possible to all Argentine citizens to access information.

In that sense, the UNI Telefónica Alliance expressed that these measures are an outrage and violate inalienable human rights such as the Right to Information and Freedom of Expression.

Furthermore, access to information and the plurality of voices in a democratic government must be guaranteed for the construction of a more egalitarian and defender of human rights civil society.

Recently, through an administrative tool called Emergency Decree, President Mauricio Macri ruled out Law No. 27,078, called the Digital Argentina Act, and modified Law No. 26,522, called Media Act.

The President established the dissolution of both the Federal Authority for Information and Communications Technologies (Known as AFTIC, for its acronym in Spanish) and the Federal Authority of Audiovisual Communications Services (Known as AFSCA, for its acronym in Spanish). We must remind you that both laws involved were voted by majority in the Congress and the Senate, after extensive debates that reflected the broad consensus reached in the Argentine society.

Specifically, the Digital Argentina Act has the goal of enabling all the inhabitants of Argentina to access information and communications services, in equitable social and geographical conditions, with the highest quality standards. It excludes all kinds of content regulation, whatever the media for their transmission. Likewise, it guarantees the development of regional economies, seeking the strengthening of existing local players, such as cooperative ventures, non profits, and SMEs, tending to foster the participation of new players, which can collectively or individually guarantee the provision of ICT services. This kind of companies generates the highest amount of jobs in the sector.

We understand that the modifications to the laws at hand aim at controlling regulatory decisions and the application of the regulations for the audiovisual and telecommunications services, in order to favor a greater concentration of the activity in certain groups with greater economic importance in the sector.

Through this action, the government is damaging the independence of the regulatory bodies of the Audiovisual and Telecommunications Services Act, with the creation of a single regulatory body, called ENACOM, composed by four representatives of the executive branch and three of the Congress ­­–from the first, second and third minorities. That is to say that five directors from the incumbent administration and two from the opposition will form it. Additionally, the executive branch can “directly and without explanation of a cause” remove any of them, as the decree reads.

There is another consequence of this decree, more specifically a consequence on Cable TV and ICT: there are now no limits for the concentration, or obligation to broadcast a channel of their own, or obligation to broadcast local TV channels. It also means the end of regulations establishing the obligation for CATV providers to include networks produced by third parties, hence creating the conditions for a package of networks to be transmitted from a central hub.

This represents the end of a plurality of voices, of the diversity of local and regional contents, of different sources of information, of local university channels, of independent fiction. The only regulator will be the “Market God”.

Decree No 267 also cancelled the limits imposed to the transference of licenses for those who have commercial end licenses, while cooperative ventures and other nonprofit suppliers were excluded from this change. This creates a fertile land for players with already dominating positions in the market to increase their scale, also freed from the incompatibilities imposed by the Audiovisual Communications Services Act).

Commercial License holders will also have the possibility to open up to 45% of their capital to stock capitalization.  Along this line, the large CATV, phone or satellite TV providers can “devour” small providers within a couple of years. The estimated jobs involved and at risk are numerous without a doubt.

The new ability to transfer licenses goes hand in hand with the automatic restart of licenses as of 2016, and the first automatic extension after 10 years for another five constitutes a mechanism that jeopardizes the most basic guarantees of plurality in access to public debates. It is worth remembering here that cancelled articles 41 and 45 of the Audiovisual Communications Services Act –which regulated everything pertaining the transference and multiplicity of licenses– had already been declared constitutional by the Supreme Court facing claims made against them by major license holders.

It is also worth mentioning the situation in terms of phone service providers. They could start broadcasting as of January 1st, 2018, except if ENACOM established they have to wait for another year. On the contrary, there are no limits for multimedia companies, since the decree establishes that broadcasting licenses be transformed in “Digital Argentina” ICT services licenses, allowing them to provide phone and data services, without the need to ask for an additional ad hoc license.

In opposite direction, companies providing Satellite TV services cannot provide ICT services. Clearly, the aim is to enhance the development of certain players, leaving others behind and hence affecting employment and investment levels.

As we said in the beginning, legality demands for rules establishing restrictions to any kind of right –which is here the case– to be discussed in the arena that the republican system has for it: the National Congress, with the participation of majorities and minorities. Decree No 267 also deprived us from that basic guarantee.

As a conclusion, as the members of the UNI-Telefónica Global Union Alliance we gather on this Regional Meeting to express our concern about what is taking place in Argentina: a democratically elected government is behaving in ways that only political-military regimes have had in the past.

We understand this as a fraud to the popular will, which will be rejected by the majority of citizens and institutions, since what the argentine society had built is being destroyed.

We believe that the Executive Branch, through the emergency Decrees, is severely harming the human right to communications and to the full exercise of freedom of expression of each of the inhabitants of our country, by limiting the access to the technical, physical and regulatory means that communication tools and services represent. Namely, it is acting in the benefit of a greater concentration of media, a detriment to popular majorities.

The UNI Telefonica Global Union Alliance takes the opportunity to express concern about the increasing repression of social conflicts in Argentina and the arbitrary detention of social leaders as the leader of Parlasur, Milagro Sala.