Romania's National Council for Audio Visual (CNA), whose job it is to ensure that TV and radio stations operate in an environment of free speech, responsibility and competitiveness have decided today to terminate adverts by Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMCG) from all media channels, deeming the companies adverts unlawful.
The adverts concerned the subject of Rosia Montana's controversial gold mine plans, which carried a 'jobs are good for Romania' narrative and have been broadcast over the past couple of months in various versions throughout the whole of the Romanian media.
CNA's website states: "this decision has been made until RMGC and the authors modify their adverts so they start conforming with the law. Until that happens no television channel is allowed to broadcast the companies existing adverts."
This move by CNA comes two days after Eugenia Voda, a respected Romanian TV presenter wrote an open letter to the organisation calling for "immediate and complete termination of related RMGC commercials that have invaded Romanian broadcasting."
Loran Turos, a member on the board of CNA, said: "what is the purpose of this campaign, there is no product or service being sold...why is this company paying so much money? To promote what?"
Turos continued: "My opinion is that this company has a very well established interest to gain a positive vote in parliament - therefore it is promoting a political interest. This is already a political problem. It requires a political decision"
While Romanian media channels have been broadcasting a barrage of positive adverts about job creation by the mining company, hundreds-of-thousands of protesters have been taking to the streets worldwide against RMGC's plans for a controversial gold mine project in the Apuseni Mountains.
Since September 1 when RMGC started its heavy media campaign, CNA has received around 2,000 complaints about the issue, while adverts have been shown hundreds of times on all major news channels.