The European Newsroom of press agencies

18 news agencies are joining forces and collaborating in a common 'European Newsroom', a space for correspondents to work and train together in Brussels with a view to producing and disseminating news on EU affairs.

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The project

Next to their regular reporting, agencies’ correspondents jointly produce news digests twice a week, feeding one another’s news wires and dissemination channels, and therefore offering a pan-European perspective on EU affairs to audiences across the continent.

They have set up a physical news production hub in Brussels from which they also provide training to participating agencies (on cybersecurity, fact-checking and multimedia), as well as additional side services (agenda of events, common space for joint interviews, accreditation service, etc.).

Ultimately, the project has the potential to improve collaborations and journalistic standards in Europe. The European Newsroom has published its first new items in July 2022.

The consortium

The European Newsroom of news agencies in Brussels is a project originally run by a consortium of 16 news agencies coordinated by the German Press Agency (dpa), covering 11 EU Member States as well as four candidate or potential candidate countries. The partners are: dpa (Germany), AFP (France), Agerpres (Romania), ANSA (Italy), APA (Austria), Belga (Belgium), BTA (Bulgaria), Europapress and EFE (Spain), HINA (Croatia), STA (Slovenia), TASR (Slovakia), ATA (Albania), FENA (Bosnia-Herzegovina), MIA (Republic of North Macedonia), Tanjug (Serbia). Two additional news agencies have joined the project at a later stage, without receiving EU funding: PAP (Poland) and Ukrinform (Ukraine).

Roll-out of the initiative

The project was launched in January 2022, with the first items published in July. The European Commission’s funding will cover its operating costs until the end of 2023 (24 months in total).

Background

The European newsroom project was selected following an open call for proposals, as part of the multimedia actions of the European Commission. It was awarded a €1.76 million grant. The chief objective of the call, launched in June 2021, is to increase the production, curation and circulation of professional and multilingual news media content covering EU affairs.