European Parliament signs agreement with private TV outlets

Ahead of the European elections on 6-9 June, the European Parliament signed on Thursday a Memorandum of Understanding with ENEX - the European News Exchange.

ENEX represents 55 private TV outlets. The partnership will deepen the cooperation between the two sides to ensure broad coverage of the European elections.

With the Memorandum of Understanding, the European Parliament and ENEX seek to strengthen the collaboration between Parliament’s communication services and ENEX’s headquarters, to increase awareness and cooperation of each other’s services and to foster direct contacts.

ENEX’s mission is to facilitate good and understandable journalism to enable its members to better report on EU affairs, so stories can be told and light shone on policy, debate and dialogue. The European Parliament frequently champions the importance of having free and balanced media to foster transparency and ensure the dissemination of important electoral information.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by European Parliament Vice-President Othmar Karas, Jaume Duch, Director-General for Communication and spokesperson of the European Parliament, and Adrian Wells, Managing Director for ENEX.

“These European elections come at a critical time for the world. The crises of the past few years, from COVID-19, to the war in Ukraine and the increased cost of living, among others, have raised citizens’ awareness and expectations of the impact of the European Union. It is more important than ever that citizens have access to reliable information, so that they can make informed decisions about their future, and fully engage with their democratic rights. As research shows that most European citizens get their news from television, our continued partnership with ENEX, underlined by this Memorandum of Understanding, helps us in the pursuit of this goal”, said European Parliament Vice-President Othmar Karas, ahead of the signature.

Background

ENEX is an association of leading commercial TV broadcasters founded in 1993 and based in Luxembourg. ENEX’s 55 members, of which 26 are from 24 EU countries, are drawn from across the world. The partners exchange daily their most relevant video news items and provide each other with the necessary production resources when there is breaking news or special events. The coordination centre in Luxembourg delivers every year more than 32 000 stories and 3 000 live sources.