The Ukrainian parliament has passed a new law for regulating the media.

Verkhovna Rada MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak posted the vote count on Telegram. Among the MPs present, 299 voted in favor of the bill and none against it. Two deputies abstained, and 30 more did not participate. The news was also announced by Yevhenia Kravchuk, deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, a member of the Servant of the People faction.

"The draft law on media was voted as a whole! 299 deputies in 10 years, three convocations and finally we, the deputies of the 9th convocation, have done it - new modern rules for the media will appear. Our informational European integration begins. Proud to be a co-author of the media reform in Ukraine," Kravchuk wrote on Facebook.

People's deputy of the Voice faction Yaroslav Zhelezniak noted that the document was adopted with compromise positions.

"1. Regulation of the status of the Rada channel (the channel must provide the broadcast of the sessions of the Parliament, and during the martial law and restrictions on live broadcasts, the channel broadcasts recordings on the day of the plenary session). 2. Regulations regarding election legislation have been removed," Zhelezniak wrote on Telegram.

The new law expands the powers of the National Radio and TV Broadcasting Council — possibly too much, according to its critics in the media and among the political opposition.

Among the rights granted by the new legislation to the National Broadcasting Council is a right to block access to an unregistered publication without a court decision, for up to two weeks. A court order is still necessary to block a publication permanently, as pointed out by Yevhenia Kravchuk.

Ukrainska Pravda points out that the new legislation should satisfy the European Commission’s criterion of media regulation — one of requirements that must be met by Ukraine in order to join the EU.