Closing Event of the Twinning Project on the Enhancement of AVMU and MRT’s Capacities

 Skopje, 27 January 2025 – On 24 January, the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services and the German Foundation for International Cooperation (IRZ) held a joint event to round off the Twinning project on “Enhancing the Capacities of the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services and the Public Broadcasting Service”, funded by the European Union.

The event was opened by the project leader Holger Albrich, who dwelled on the importance of the project for AVMU and the MRT, as well as for the two countries, Germany and Macedonia. The President of the AVMU Council, Lazo Petrushevski, emphasized the following in his introductory speech: “The opportunity to closely exchange knowledge and experiences with relevant institutions and organizations, primarily regarding alignment with the revised EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive that took place shortly after the start of the Project, was of great importance. We adapted these experiences to our conditions and translated them into bylaws, guidelines and guides… All activities under this Project were useful for consistent implementation of the amended media legislation.”

The Editor-in-Chief of the MRT’s First Programming Channel, Dragan Nikolovski, added that the experiences and knowledge gained by the employees of various multiple sectors, departments and organizational levels at MRT were invaluable and expressed gratitude, on behalf of over 600 employees of the Public Broadcasting Service, for the opportunity to be part of the Twinning Project.

 EU Ambassador Michalis Rokas pointed out that the results of the Project should be sustainable and that reforms require dedication and constant work, especially in the field of media, which are essential to every society’s democracy. The Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, Petra Drexler, speaking about the joint commitment to ensuring freedom of expression and fundamental rights, emphasized that the improvement of the situation must continue, because only in this way can public broadcasters remain relevant actors, and regulators fulfill their oversight role in the long term.

Resident Twinning Advisor Ulrich Hermanski presented the mandatory outcomes of the project activities in his speech and pointed out that the planned key results aimed at enhancing the capacities of AVMU and MRT had been achieved successfully.

In the panel discussion titled “Disinformation: How to Recognize and Prevent Them,” the moderator Sasho Bogdanovski of AVMU launched the Handbook on Recognizing Disinformation, that had been prepared was part of the Twinning Project, while Marina Trajkova presented the practical tools from the Handbook for recognizing videos and photos created with the help of artificial intelligence. In the discussion, Thomas Rathgeb, Head of the Media Literacy Department at the State Institute for Communications in Baden-Württemberg, stressed the importance of tackling disinformation in the Project. Maja Stojanova, journalist and editor at MRT, and Dr. Nikola Panovski, professor of medical microbiology, spoke about the abuse of their names in advertisements for medical products.



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