Riga, Oct 28 (LETA) - Program for media modernization and digitization supported from the European Union's Recovery and Resilience Facility is to be increased by EUR 7.4 million, according to a draft regulation prepared by the Culture Ministry.

The Economics Ministry has found an opportunity to reallocate EUR 4 million in the Latvian Recovery and Resilience Mechanism Plan reform and investment direction Digital Transformation and Innovation of Enterprises.

Meanwhile, the Education and Science Ministry plans to reallocate EUR 3.4 million from the reform and investment direction Digital Skills to the investment Development of a Self-directed Learning Approach for ICT Specialists.

This brings the total funding for this objective to EUR 11.1 million.

The planned proportions of expenditure by year are indicatively EUR 740,000 in 2024, EUR 5.18 million in 2025 and EUR 1.48 million in 2026.

As reported, the coalition has reached an agreement on providing additional support for the modernization of the mass media, Prime Minister Evika Silina (New Unity) said on platform X.

Silina said that she expects the Culture Ministry to take urgent decisions "so that Latvian media, also at the regional level, are more prepared for the challenges of the future".

In early October, the Latvian Television (LTV) reported that regional media had been denied EU funding for digitization of content. In order to ensure that independent journalism continues to exist in the regions and that so-called information deserts do not form, regional newspapers were invited to use the available funding from the Recovery and Resilience Facility to digitize their newspapers.