Dead Sea, 20- 22 April 2007
« Mediterranean : another way of communicating »
Organised thanks to the hospitality of JRTV – Jordan Radio and Television, in the suggestive setting of the Dead Sea, the XIV Conference of COPEAM has seen the Mediterranean audiovisual product as the actual protagonist of this rendezvous.
At the core of the three-day event, new languages and new visions: starting from the fourth “Inter-Rives” workshop (19th April) – where the production of the documentaries dealing with “Trends of contemporary art” and “Women” has been finalized and a pilot series ready to be broadcast has been launched– and continuing with the meetings of the Commissions and Working Groups (20th April), where many current and future projects have been presented by COPEAM and its members.
Product and philosophy, action and reflection. COPEAM activities and not only. On the 21st April, the plenary Conference has been opened by Fayçal Shboul, Director General of JRTV, Habib Chawki Hamraoui, President of COPEAM, Alessandra Paradisi, Secretary General, and has welcomed the presence of the Vice Secretary General of the Arab League in charge of Information and Communication, Mr. Mohamed Kamlichi, who conveyed the salutes of H.E. Amr Moussa, and the Minister of State for the Cabinet Affairs of the Jordan Government, Dr. Mohye El Deen Toq. Finally, the message addressed to the participants by Luisa Morgantini, Vice-President of the European Parliament has been read.
Among the speakers of the first session, moderated by the RAI journalist Monica Maggioni, and devoted to “Which communication for which civilisation(s)?”, Mohamed Abassa, founder and Director of the Abassa Institute for media research; Rowaida Al-Maaitah, President of the Women Organization of the Arab League; Ameen Bassiouni, President of the all-news satellite channel Nile Sat; Gema Martín Muňoz, Director of the Casa Arabe; Ralf Schmerberg, videoartist, film director and creator of the multimedia project “Dropping Knowledge”.
The afternoon session, “Speaking Mediterranean: new languages, new visions” gathered representatives of the media sector from the European, Balkan and Mediterranean areas: Erik Bettermann, Director General of Deutsche Welle; Boris Bergant, from RTVSLO, Vice-President of European Broadcasting Union (EBU); Isona Passola, film director and President of APIMED (International Association of Independent Producers of the Mediterranean); Sima Bahous, President of the Higher Media Council of Jordan; Nacer Mehal, Director General of the Algerian Press Service (APS) and Vice-Director of the Union of the Mediterranean Press Agencies; Aidan White, Secretary General of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ); Fadila Anwar, moderator of the session, Chief Editor of the Moroccan TV 2M.
The plenary session has been honoured by the presence of H.E. the Prime Minister of Jordan, Dr. Marouf Bakhit, who has addressed an important message on the responsibility of the media, on the risk of an overdone competition, and on the consequences of the increasing violence of images.
XIII General Assembly
In the framework of the XIII General Assembly of COPEAM, on the 22nd April, the President Habib Chawki Hamraoui and the Steering Committee have presented to the Members of the General Assembly an important document, the Declaration of Amman, concerning the protection and the defense of journalists in conflict zones.
Making reference to the Memorandum that the President transmitted to the Secretary General of the United Nations, on the occasion of the World Media Forum held in Tunis in December 2005 and to the adoption, by the Security Council, in December 2006, of a resolution (n. 1738) following up this Memorandum, the Declaration asks for the improvement of security measures for journalists and media operators in the war zones.
It has been adopted by acclamation by the members of the General Assembly.
During the meeting, the Secretary General gave the floor to the new members of the Association who introduced themselves to the General Assembly : EB Communication and Radio Watan.
Before closing the General Assembly, the members expressed their deepest thanks to JRTV for the high quality of the organization of the Conference and, finally, welcomed the invitation of the Rumanian Radio and Television to host the 15th Conference of COPEAM in 2008.
ACTS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY:
Declaration of the XIII General Assembly
Moral Report of the President, Mr. H. C. HAMRAOUI
Annual Report of the Secretary General, Mrs. PARADISI
Report of the President of the Financial Committee, Mr. MALESANI
Closing Ceremony of the Conference
The Closing Ceremony of the Conference has been introduced by the presentation of the book “10 years of COPEAM”, a publication by the General Secretariat dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Association (1996-2006) issued by the LJB.
Mr. Vittorio Panchetti and Mr. Ameen Bassiouni – respectively first Secretary General and first President of COPEAM, elected in 1996 – have welcomed this initiative and shared with the participants the “spirit” that has been enlivening and moving the Association since its foundation.
A panorama of the main in-progress activities and products has been presented by the Secretary General through video projections.
TV co-productions area:
– a promo of the Italian episode of the series “The path of Oil and Olive” (partners: Libya, Cyprus, Morocco, France, Italy, Spain, Algeria, Palestine), awarded in November 2006 at the International Festival of Plock, Poland, in the section “Food-and-wine Tourism” ;
– a proposal for the video-opening of the “Inter-Rives” pilot series, carried out by the General Secretariat of COPEAM .
Radio co-productions area:
– “Portraits of Football players”: the listening of a collection of different interviews made by the partners of the co-production was presented and Pierre Mari (FB Frequenza Mora) explained the future steps of the series development.
Other TV collaborations:
– following the fruitful collaboration carried out during the summer and the autumn 2006 between COPEAM and the Italian satellite channel Sat2000, a miscellaneous of some moments taken from programmes “windows” devoted to the activities of COPEAM and of its members was shown.
Training area:
– The ENTV presented a promotional video on the “University of COPEAM” projectand, in particular, the successful results obtained during the last edition (March 2007).
Finally, the rendezvous has been marked even by an important adhesion to COPEAM’s Seville Charter, signed by Mr. Mustapha Kammari, President of ERTT – Etablissement de Radio et Télévision Tunisienne.
During the Closing Ceremony Mr. Shboul, Director General of the JRTV, congratulated for the success of the Conference, that has marked “an additional step on the way to partnership among the Mediterranean” and that has been based on “a great joint effort between COPEAM and JRTV teams”.
Patrick Renauld, Head of the E.C. Delegation in Jordan, has expressed his greetings to the participants, underlining the need of a collaboration between the European institutions and the Euro-Mediterranean media, in order to fill the knowledge gap that affects the region and to find more effective tools able to inform citizens about how European institutions operate and invest their financial sources.
Slaheddine Maaoui, Director General of ASBU, has focused his speech on the relevance of the “permanent, multiform and concrete cooperation between COPEAM and ASBU” that involves the domains of co-production, news exchange and training, and that has actually improved the North-South audiovisual exchange. In addition to this bilateral cooperation, he has stressed the importance of the “ad-hoc instance, the Tripartite, conceived to carry on the cooperation with the EBU”. Finally, he thanked the Arab League, represented on this occasion by Mr. Kamlichi, for the strong will to encourage this cooperation in the field of media.
Finally, Jean Réveillon, Secretary General of EBU, has underlined the fact that the responsibility and the duty of the media will never come to an end. Indeed, nowadays it is necessary to improve dialogue not only between different countries or in areas once divided by wars and conflicts, like the ex-Yugoslavia, but also, today more than ever, within each countries, intra-boundaries; in fact, countries and peoples have changed, in particular in Europe, and the concept of “cultural diversity” has become more and more crucial. “We, the citizens, have to understand that the concept of “we” has changed, that means not to renounce to our identity, but, on the contrary, to enrich it and become more tolerant”. The role of the public service media and of the civil societies is fundamental in this context, even considering that “the media Associations – like EBU, COPEAM, ASBU – are places where the thread of dialogue has never got broken”.