The meeting was organized by UNESCO’s Division for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace to inform the South East European Delegations about the progress of the project.

The two and half – year project, started in 2008, is funded by the European Commission and implemented by UNESCO. It aims at encouraging, assisting and accelerating media reforms in the South-East European countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey and Kosovo (under UNSCR1244). The project is expected to consolidate internationally recognized standards in these states and bring about more media protection, professionalism, accountability and independence.

The Information meeting was chaired by Mogens Schmidt, Deputy Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information. Tarja Turtia, Programme Specialist and Ognian Zlatev, Managing Director at the Media Development Center (Bulgaria), provided an introduction about the current situation of media accountability and self-regulation in the South East European region and the achievements of the project so far.

The main activities of the project and their progress were presented: connecting the local press councils with the self – regulation process at the European level; establishing a reference for media accountability systems/self – regulation and a virtual network of interested professionals in the region; dissemination of lessons learned and assessment of further needs on media accountability and self – regulation; promoting alternative, newsroom – based forms of accountability or self – regulation trough a series of thematic brainstorming and workshop; contribute to creating/strengthening the environment for the development and/or amending the media law in line with European standards.

The meeting was attended by the delegates of the targeted countries, who actively contributed to the discussion about the current situation in their states. The participants agreed that UNESCO should continue the activities of the project, strengthening not only journalistic professionalism but also improving how politicians are prepared to deal with independent journalism.