From 9 to 11 December 2008, the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), in cooperation with the Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC)/ Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and with the local partner Radio Televizija Slovenija, organised the SEEMO Regional Conference “Public Broadcasting in South East Europe”, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
During the conference several topics were discussed as all participating countries are dealing with similar issues concerning public broadcasting. Therefore this conference was a good opportunity to brainstorm together on how to deal with certain issues in the best possible way. Topics during the conference included; “The current state of affairs in the field of public broadcasting in South East Europe”, “Future of new media activities and PBS”, “EBU and PBS in the region”, “ERNO and the future of the trans-border cooperation”, and “The experience of the governing bodies of the PBS in the region”.
Boris Bergant from RTV Slovenija mentioned, for example, that the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is under permanent threat as everybody wants gains and advantages so the PBS has to anticipate changes and requests in advance. Problems are many faceted and of both a legal and financial nature, as well as being affected by the economic crisis and replicable advertisements but problems are also of a nature of principle.
The South East and Central European region are countries still in transition. The region has a difficult history, a recent history of hate and war and transition will take longer here. That is why everybody needs to help each other, learn from each other, learn from more experienced public service broadcasters, but also from the positive examples that are there. Benchmarking is necessary.
Jean Reveillon, Director General of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), stated that EBU is committed to answering freedom of expression and is very concerned about journalists’ safety. All conclusions from this meeting were put together in a document called the ’Ljubljana Recommendations on Public Broadcasting’ and have been distributed to all the participants as a guideline.