TIRANA, September 19 /ATA/ The Organization of Balkan News Agencies (ABNA) – Southeast Europe (SE) will have its headquarters in Bulgaria. General Director of the Bulgarian news agency, BTA, Kiril Valchev, will be the General Secretary of the organization for a three-year mandate.
The representatives of news agencies from 11 participating countries at the 30th ABNA-SE General Assembly, which BTA hosted in Burgas, unanimously voted for and accepted it.
The official registration of ABNA-SE will be in Bulgaria and its headquarters will be in the BTA premises. The ABNA-SE charter is in line with the principles of the European Assembly of News Agencies (EANA) charter.
“This serves a wider recognition of our country, because there are not many registered international organizations and this is one of the few. Eleven countries joined from the Balkans; we also have an observer from Italy and we expect other countries to join as well”, said Valchev.
According to him, the organization can expand even further, considering South-East Europe.
He emphasized that Moldova, Georgia, Armenia can join Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Romania, Turkey, Croatia and Montenegro.
General Director of the Greek news agency, ANA, Emilios Perdikaris was elected president of ABNA-SE.
The organization’s next assembly will take place in Thessaloniki in the spring of 2023, while Turkey will host ABNA-SE in 2024.
The Board of Directors of ABNA-SE includes the current president of ABNA Skënder Krasniqi, owner of the “Kosova Press” news agency and Serdar Karagöz, general director of AA.
The idea to create the Organization of Balkan News Agencies was born in September 1994, at a meeting in Sofia of representatives of news agencies from the Balkans.
The first informal founding General Assembly of ABNA-SE was held in June 1995 in Thessaloniki.
The purpose of the organization is to enable the development of cooperation between news agencies from the region and to contribute to the creation of a climate of peace, friendship and cooperation in the Balkans.
This organization includes ATA, FENA, BTA, ANA, CNA, KosovaPress, MIA, Agerpres, TANJUG, AA and HINA. /r.e/p.s./
