Executive Council of the Public Broadcaster responds to the proposal of the President of Georgia and expresses readiness to meet with Giorgi Margvelashvili. But also indicates that it will not participate in a mixed format.

Ana Dolidze, the parliamentary secretary of the president said that Giorgi Margvelashvili will meet with representatives of media and non-governmental sector on Monday in connection with law on the Georgian Public Broadcaster.

The executive council statement notes that if the President has any additional questions after the meeting, the discussion may continue in another format.

"We just welcome the President"s interest in the Public Broadcaster and we are ready to talk about our problems, challenges, ways to strengthen the Public Broadcaster. Only after such a meeting if the President still has questions regarding the legislative amendments, we will be ready to talk about the other format of the meeting.

Prior to that any participation in any other formal is unacceptable for us, because in our view, such a format does not provide a real possibility to clarify the matter and can only be detrimental to the outcome. Because certain groups try to deliberately distort the specific terms of the law and completely disregard the general spirit of the law, we disagree with them because of our principles and the interests of the broadcaster, "states the Public Broadcaster"s Executive Council.

The adoption of the draft law on the Public Broadcaster in Parliament has become a reason of a major protest. The new draft law grants the public broadcaster, financed by 52 million from the budget, right for additional commercial advertising and sponsorship.