Conference of European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) organised in Bucharest for first time

The conference of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) is taking place for the first time in Bucharest, between 25-27 April, with the AGERPRES Romanian National News Agency being the co-organiser of the meeting.

The theme of the conference in Bucharest called "News Agencies and Changing Markets Strategies for Developing New Content," is debated by over 40 directors, CEOs and editors-in-chief of the EANA member news agencies.

The event was opened by President of the Alliance and CEO of the Swedish press agency TT Jonas Eriksson, together with AGERPRES Director General Alexandru Giboi.

Jonas Eriksson mentioned during his speech the important role of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has major implications for Europe's major technology companies, as well as the need to combat fake news.

"When it comes to us, we obviously have hope that all the legislation being implemented in the European Union will work very well (...) but we should never give up and not knock on wood we will be included in that legislation when it finally comes," TT CEO Jonas Eriksson stated.

In his speech, Director General Alexandru Giboi talked about the importance of the mission to correctly inform the viewers, thus, allowing the public to make some good decisions.

"AGIL, AGERPRES Innovation Lab, as a support for this initiative of ours to provide more and more diverse, quantity and quality-wise, content for our viewers. (...) AGIL is an AGERPRES initiative, to create a start-up environment that is aiming towards testing and deploying the newest technologies but adapting them to our own specific," AGERPRES Director General Giboi stated.

He added that the development of the AGERPRES Romanian National News Agency will not stop here, giving that a project for developing the website's artificial intelligence is up next.

AGIL, AGERPRES Innovation Lab, is an initiative of the AGERPRES Romanian National News Agency designed to start-up an innovation environment that aims at testing and implementing the latest production and media distribution technologies at national and international level. Within the project, the first Facebook Messenger NewsBot of Romania was launched, as well as the new website of AGERPRES, which offers, after logging in, the option to select the type of news and the order of the news categories on the home page.

Secretary General of the EANA and mass-media expert with a wide experience and former CEO of the TT agency Erik Nylen drew the conclusions regarding the proposals for amending the copyright law.

"We have to keep on fighting for it. It's essential as we see that they approve the idea of neighboring rights for press publishers and news agencies and it seems still to be a long way to go," Nylen stated.

Among the attendees of the event there were also Christine Buhagiar, AFP Director Europe; Mustafa Ozkaya, Deputy Director Anadolu; Alex Teres, ANA Vice President (Andorra); Michalis Psilos, CEO of ANA-MPA (Greece); Martijn Bennis, CEO of ANP (the Netherlands); Clemens Pig, CEO of APA (Austria); Armela Krasniqi, General Director of ATA (Albania); Maxim Minchev, General Director BTA (Bulgaria); Tom Wuytack, Belga CIO (Belgium); George Penintaex, Director CNA (Cyprus); Jiri Majstr, General Director of CTK (Czechia); Peter Kropsch, CEO of dpa (Germany); Elmir Huremovic, General Director of FENA (Bosnia and Herzegovina); Branka-Gabriela Vojvodic, director of HINA (Croatia); Clive Marshall, CEO of the PA Group, Oleksandr Kharchenko, General Director UKRINFORM (Ukraine).

EANA was established on 21 August 1956 in Strasbourg. The Alliance is a forum for cooperation and information exchange between European news agencies, comprising over 30 member agencies promoting copyright compliance, access to information, the development of technology for its transmission and freedom of the press.

Founded in 1889, AGERPRES is the National News Agency of Romania. It has the role of providing balanced, impartial information, being the main source of information for citizens and institutions in the country, as well as the most important source of news about Romania abroad. Since 1921, the agency has had an uninterrupted transmission of news and information. AGERPRES services include: thematic news feeds, services and news photo archive, press monitoring, video and multimedia services, documentary news flow and printing services. AGERPRES (RO - author: Madalina Cerban, editor: Catalin Alexandru; EN - author: Rodica State, editor: Razvan-Adrian Pandea)