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The EURO-MEI Assembly, which took place in Rome on 9 and 10 June was marked by continuity and change. Marc Kerki, ACOD/VRT stepped down as President of EURO-MEI after leading the European region for more than a decade. With Marc several members of the Executive stepped down as well. The Assembly expressed its thanks and gratitude to Marc and all those who have served on the outgoing Executive over the past years for all their work and commitment. The General Assembly was the last statutory meeting organised by UNI-MEI Director Jim Wilson, who will retire from his position at the end of July this year. Affiliates paid tribute to his leadership and thanked him for his energy and efforts to build, grow and progress the organisation in the world and in Europe over the last thirty years.



The Assembly elected William Maunier, Secretary General of the Audiovisual Workers Union of CGT, SNRT-CGT (France) to succeed Marc as EURO-MEI President. William has served on the European Management Committee since 2005 and is part of the leadership of SNRT-CGT since 1995.



Luke Crawley, BECTU (UK), Cordula Bauermeister, VERDI (Germany), Raimo Söder, TEME (Finland), Ana Molano FCS-CCOO (Spain), Pier Verderio, FISTEL-CISL (Italy) and Heinz Fiedler, KMSfB (Austria) were elected Vice-Presidents.



Affiliates adopted a series of resolution to give shape to a renewed policy programme with focus on campaigns aiming at organising in the digital global economy, protecting creativity and diversity and strengthen public value in the creative industries. Affiliates reaffirmed their commitment to organising and campaigns for the respect of trade union rights and freedom of association of all workers regardless of their employment status. EURO-MEI will continue to develop the social dialogue process in audiovisual, live performance and sports as well as intensify its work on EU regulation.



“Our key challenges are to get trade union rights fully respected in all areas of the media, entertainment and arts across Europe; We need to tackle together the changes our members face as a result of globalisation, restructuring of the industries and technological change” EURO-MEI President William Maunier said. “The new leadership will continue to give priority to social dialogue, regulation and organising and we want to further build our relationship with affiliates beyond Europe. This cooperation will drive global organising campaigns and build global alliances. In the past years we have built a strong basis for union cooperation across borders and a good working relationship with many social partners in our different sectors. Now, we want to push further and we want to conclude a first EU agreement in the framework of the EU social dialogue and to get global framework agreements with European companies with operations in other regions. ”, he added.



Three resolutions on social dialogue were adopted underlying the importance of the process and EURO-MEI’s commitment to make it an effective tool in order to better working conditions for media, entertainment and arts workers across the EU member states and other European countries. Beata Sasinowska of Directorate General of Employment presented the structure and functioning of EU social dialogue and discussed with affiliates the strengths and challenges of the social dialogue processes in the three sub-sectors.



Resolutions also addressed the future of public service broadcasting, the protection of creators’ rights and their works, the realisation of cultural diversity and life long learning. The Assembly also underlined the wish of affiliates to further develop cooperation with other sectors within UNI Global Union to set-up and build European Works Councils and tackle issues of common concern.



The debates also provided the opportunity to exchange with representatives of sister organisations and social partners on key issues. Peter Fogelmarck from the Swedish public Broadcaster SVT and co-chair of the EU Audiovisual Social Dialogue as well as Roberto Natale of the European federation of Journalist discussed with participants how to ensure a sustainable development of public service broadcasting in the digital environment. Richard Pulford, former PEARLE President and Benôit Machuel, General Secretary of the International Federation of Musicians took part in the session on strengthen public value in performance and the arts exploring how social partners can work together to further develop the industry.