De la Peter Kramer -secretar general AEJ

To the leadership of the sections, special relations, members of the Media Freedom Network and committees, and other friends

Sorry that I need two tries for sending this message correctly. I hope this one is ok now and that you will read it and give response!



1 – On February 22, we had a very fruitful Executive Committee meeting in Athens and celebrated the same day the glorious revival of the European Journalism Prize, thanks to the National Bank of Greece and to our dear colleagues of the Greek section -> the winner was Geoff Meade, a very well known Brussels based correspondent from the UK. AEJ Austria’s President Otmar Lahodynsky was one of the winners of the Kalligas Award. More information very soon on the AEJ website and in the AEJ Newsletter.



2 – On February 28, William Horsley, AEJ Media Freedom Representative, presented in Brussels the Update of AEJ’s Media Freedom Survey Goodbye to Freedom?. Brussels-based journalists and representatives of international journalist’s organisations (NUJ, EFJ/IFJ) were present in this meeting organised by ‘Journalists@YourService’ and the Belgian AEJ section. The coverage of the event was very good. Thanks to Celia Hampton, the AEJ-UK website (www.aej-uk.org) has the Update, the transcript of Williams’ presentation, the NUJ report and the original Survey etc. All can be clicked and accessed!



3. - WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY. Last year 9 of the AEJ sections have celebrated WPFD. Now the AEJ is broadly recognised as one of the journalist’s organisation that Freedom of the Media seriously considered as one of the main subjects, it would be great that even more sections are active around WPFD 2008.

In Athens we talked about the subject and many sections showed their intentions and plans for WPFD 2008.

Request: may I invite all the sections to let me know before March 31 what activities are planned for May 3 (or another date before are after), If you need support or advice, please contact me or William (wh@williamhorsley.com).



4 – SPEAK UP EUROPE. In Athens we talked about ‘European Movement’ 60 years (1948-2008), celebrated with the Congress of Europe in The Hague 23-24 May 2008. European Movement (as you know the AEJ is a member of EM) is looking for ideas and comments on the future of Europe. The 60 best ideas will be presented during the Congress in The Hague directly to the leaders of Europe.

Request: please leave your ideas and comments on the future of Europe on a special blog. Visit www.Europeanmovement.org/news.