Seminar looks at EU’s role with its neighbours

A SEMINAR designed to raise the profile of EC-funded operations in the EuroMed area took place this week in Nicosia.

The seminar is part of the development of EuroMedInfo Centre’s information programme, managed through its Brussels and Nicosia offices by Action Global Communications on behalf of the European Commission.

Action Global Communications representatives from nine EuroMed countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, offered presentations on their work and profiles of the government and media landscapes in which they operate.

The seminar was introduced by Tony Christodoulou, CEO of Action Global Communications, and John Vickers, the Brussels-based EuroMedInfo Centre Project Leader, who presented an outline of the Centre’s project, which is part of the EU-funded Regional Information and Communication programme dealing with the European and Mediterranean partnership, and how it was initiated by the European Commission with the objective of making the MEDA Region Programme and the EU’s partnership with its Mediterranean neighbours more visible.

Chrystelle Lucas, Programme Manager, AIDCO, part of the European Commission, said that the regional information programme of the EuroMedInfo Centre was developing as an instrument of the EC’s European Neighbourhood Partnership, which encompasses the EuroMed countries and the countries bordering the expanded European Union to the east.

She said the role of the EuroMedInfo Centre was to raise awareness of the EU in the MEDA countries, to assist in building and sustaining the relationship between the MEDA region and the EU, and to utilise innovative methods to facilitate the work of MEDA journalists in relation to EU projects in their countries.

Action Global Communications opened its office in Brussels in October 2005. This houses the operation, provides PR support for Cypriot companies operating there, and expands its involvement in European Union projects.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.