Burgas, 19 September 2022 (MIA) – “Together for true news” was the main theme of the 30th General Assembly of the Association of the Balkan News Agencies – Southeast Europe (ABNA-SE) held Monday in Burgas. At the assembly, ABNA-SE, after being an informal organization operating for more than 30 years, became a formal Association, registered as a legal entity with its own Statute and rules of conduct to be followed by all its members, but also criteria to be fulfilled by all those seeking to join the Association in the future. The Statute adopted at the Assembly, was created on the basis of the legal document of the European Alliance of News Agencies, bringing ABNA-SE’s operations closer to the European standards and EU rules. The management board consists of last year’s, the current and future chairman – the heads of KosovaPress, ANA-MPA and Anadolu Agency – Skender Krasniqi, Aimilios Perdikaris and Serdar Karagöz respectively. The Assembly voted for Greece to hold the chairmanship in 2022, and Turkey in 2023. The head of the BTA, Kiril Valchev, proposed that the next Assembly in Thessaloniki adopt the proposal for MIA to hold the ABNA-SE chairmanship in 2025. The Assembly was opened by Valchev, and was attended by delegations from the member agencies, as well as Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Atanas Pekanov, Minister of Tourism Ilin Dimitrov and Burgas Mayor Dimitar Nikolov. Valchev stated that the Balkan national news agencies have a great responsibility to ensure that the citizens receive accurate information, but also to bring the countries closer to each other. “We exchange information on a daily basis, but we also contribute to finding solutions for difficult issues. We get to know each other better,” said Valchev, noting that the Balkan agencies respect the international journalistic standards in conveying facts, without their own assessments or interpretations and always citing the source of information. He pointed out that the task of the agencies is to work together in order to always convey true, accurate and verified information about all current developments. The head of the BTA emphasized that from now on ABNA-SE is a registered Association and a legal entity. “Our informal organization has been registered. From now on ABNA-SE will follow the best practices from the European experience, considering that the Agency’s Statute was created on the basis of that of the European Agency of News Agencies,” emphasized the head of the Bulgarian News Agency. The heads of all news agencies gave speeches at the Assembly, including MIA General Director Dragan Antonovski, who asked the attendees how much the agencies really contribute to the protection of the truth and ensuring the freedom of the media space. “I am not familiar with the real reasons for the creation of ABNA, when it was founded, I assume networking has always been a good enough reason, yet in the last five years I have not felt a significant difference nor relief from the fact that we are in this together. Yes, we collaborate on important issues, we have had mutual exchanges, technical service, but is that enough? For example, together with BTA we managed to have a joint reporter on certain occasions, to have a daily exchange of news, but I think that if we really want to pay respect to the theme of today’s Assembly, we should show more than that, unity in the media space,” said Antonovski. He emphasized that it is necessary to think about a more substantial exchange of information and proposed more concrete cooperation in the development of joint stories on certain topics. “I don’t see a problem if we say we will work on a joint story, for example, on how the citizens of the Balkan countries are living through the current economic crisis. A joint story on the prices, on wages. It would be interesting if we chose the education system as a topic. Politicians and politics are already a very boring and everyday topic,” said Antonovski. He underscored that this network could be used to place the citizen in the center, to place his needs in focus and use individual experiences to approach common issues. “We should make sure that we use what we have in hand in the given potential and use moments like these, today, to deal with the real challenges and opportunities in front of us,” said Antonovski. Bulgarian Deputy PM Pekanov addressed the attendees as well, saying that he highly appreciates the key goals that the ABNA-SE member agencies have set for themselves and added that they can count on the Bulgarian institutions in all spheres in which assistance for their realization is possible. “The most important thing is to raise the importance of verified information. In these very complex times, the creation and dissemination of accurate information is a key task of all those who manage the information channels, the heads of the media,” he added. The Bulgarian Minister of Tourism, Dimitrov, added that news creates emotions, emotions create thoughts, thoughts create words, and words create actions, which is why, he said, it is very important to think about the way information is presented. The attendees were addressed by Burgas Mayor Nikolov as well, who, speaking about the storm which engulfed Burgas during the weekend, said that this situation once more underscored the importance of accurate reporting of events. He noted that the agencies through their cooperation should also bring the countries closer together, by exchanging more news on the everyday lives of the citizens, news from the field of sport, culture… Bulgarian President Rumen Radev and Prime Minister Galab Donev addressed the attendees in writing. Radev said that the news may be made by the journalists, but it ultimately belongs to the people. In accordance with the new Statute each country can participate with one national agency. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina had two ABNA-SE members, SRNA and FENA, the Assembly adopted a decision making FENA a permanent member, while SRNA was given the opportunity to be an observer, for which the representative of the Agency said they will further answer whether they agree with this proposal. The idea for the creation of ABNA-SE appeared in 1994 at a meeting of the heads of the Balkan news agencies in Sofia. The Founding Assembly was held in June 1995, in Thessaloniki. The ABNA-SE member agencies are MIA, the Albanian ATA, Bosnian FENA, Bulgarian BTA, Greek ANA-MPA, Cypriot CNA, Kosovo KosovaPress, Romanian Adjerpress, Serbian TANJUG, Turkish Anadolu and Croatian HINA. ad/ba/