Regional cooperation: Birth of the Balkan Group

On 13 June, the delegates of eight TV archives, who attended the first conference of the Public Broadcasting Organisations of the Balkan countries, organised by ERT in Halkidiki, decided to operate as a regional group in the framework of FIAT.

The group is chaired by Kyriaki ARSENI.

Greece (ERT)
Albania (RTV SH)
Bosnia (RTV-BIH)
Bulgaria (BNT)
Croatia (HTV)
Romania (TVR)
Serbia-Beograd (RTS)
Serbia- Novisad (Novisad Radio TV)

Turkey, Slovenia and Fyrom were not represented, but they had participated in the preliminary survey.

As a FIAT/IFTA observer, I would like to underline some significant points :

1. This meeting aimed at exploring various fields of cooperation between Balkan broadcasting organisations, among which are the audiovisual archives. This simple fact that archives were identified, from the first meeting, as a major field of cooperation, constitutes a formal recognition of the importance of archives by their mother organisations.

2. Balkan archives hold a very large amount of archival material which represents an exceptional cultural heritage, not only for the region, but for the rest of Europe as well. But most of them suffer from a critical lack of technical, human and financial resources.

3. Balkan archives expect a significant support from FIAT in the following fields: definition of cooperation strategies, provision of technical expertise, search for technical and financial assistance.

4. Among the priority actions, it was decided :

• to launch a regional survey, with a team of FIAT experts who will visit each archive. The survey would result in a precise assessment of the priority needs in the region, and in the definition of a set of recommendations. It would allow the setting up of a cooperative safeguarding programme. It would give international visibility to the most critical situations, and therefore it might attract the interest of national decision-makers and international bodies for further support.
• to establish a preservation centre of the audiovisual archives of the region, on the basis of existing laboratories, especially in ERT.

All these points will be discussed more in more detail in Firenze, in the session dedicated to regional cooperation.

Dominiqie Saintville
INA