The Presidential Address
First of all, I would like, on my own behalf and on behalf of all members of the Higher Council of Audiovisual Communication and all executives of the High Authority, to welcome you in Morocco.
We are happy and proud to accommodate the Ninth annual meeting of our Network in this place kneaded with history and carried towards the future which is Marrakesh. Of course, this imperial city is not situated by the sea, but it definitely has a Mediterranean soul. The sparkle of its lights, the richness of its scents, the gestures, spontaneity and warmth of its inhabitants certify this. The High Authority, which is, at the moment, one of the rare authorities to represent the South of the Mediterranean there, joined this marvellous space of exchanges and dialogue two years ago, but still it had very quickly the privilege to take on its vice presidency together with our Catalan colleagues who assume merrily its presidency. Thanks to you, our authority is getting ready for presiding the MNRA for the 2007-2008 period. So, Thank you all for your confidence!
We are, at the High Authority, all the more proud to accommodate this Ninth meeting that it coincides with the celebration of the Tenth anniversary of our Network.
For a network like ours, ten years of existence is certainly the age of reason, but it is also and above all an age where one starts to become more ambitious and more demanding. Our ambitions and our requirement must transform into structuring and long-term projects. However, to open this new page in the history of our network, we are brought to outline together a common vision founded on the base of our linking principles and values and on our will to contribute, each one according to its statute and on the basis of its prerogatives, to the construction of the shared future of our Mediterranean area.
Before projecting ourselves in this future and trying to draw its shape, we are brought to take stock of the first decade of our network's existence.
These first ten years were punctuated by fruitful exchanges on common concerns regarding audiovisual regulation. Ten years of permanent exchanges and dialogue which also allowed us, and it is all the more important, to make a better acquaintance of each other, to come more closely together, to set up an exceptional climate of confidence, proximity and friendship.
Nevertheless, today, technological developments disturb seriously our reference marks, globalization threatens our diverse cultures, weakens our shared values, satellite offers upset our national audiovisual landscapes and convergence of communication and information technologies deeply transforms our consumption modes. Our Network must, therefore, be a more meaningful and structuring tool of exchanges.
It is not useless to point out the particularity of regulation, our common activity, which is an original and subtle mode of governance, brought to substitute traditional authoritative modes of administrative management, which makes it necessary to hold a permanent proximity and interaction with similar authorities from neighbouring countries.
It is crucial today, in a world where hegemony and standardization are seriously threatening us, to constitute sharing spaces around common interests and shared problems, to try as far as possible to preserve overall coherence between regulators belonging to the same geographical, cultural and philosophical areas, and thus to constitute homogeneous bodies founded on the same legal and philosophical bases and sharing the same essential values and references: protection of information right, guarantee of pluralism of expression, preserving human dignity, fighting speeches of hatred for reasons of race, religion or nationality, protecting young audience ... etc.
Our meeting wants to be, from many perspectives, a turning point in the life of our young Network. Because it coincides with its age of reason and thus inaugurates a new stage in its life. Because it grants the deserved interest to these issues that are today at the heart of our concerns, and recommends a new common approach of more pragmatic and better planned treatment. Because it confirms the need for a closer co-operation as the only rampart against the drifts of isolation and loss of reference marks. Because, for the first time, it takes place in a country of the South of the Mediterranean, and thus recalls the richness and diversity that make our Mediterranean inheritance.
Morocco in general, and Marrakesh in particular, a magic and secular place where the African, European, Mediterranean, Arab and Amazigh cultures cross and interact in harmony, is quite naturally indicated to accommodate one of the annual meetings of our Network, which feeder sap is the mutual recognition of our diversities.
We would like to take the opportunity of such a great celebration to honour, on behalf of all Network's members, those who, thanks to their unshakeable will, great perspicacity and vision, all along ten years, allowed the emergence of a gathering framework of exchanges and discussions between independent audiovisual regulatory authorities from both banks of the Mediterranean, carried by the ideal of encouraging and promoting intercultural dialogue in the Mediterranean circumference. May those among them who could join us in Marrakesh find here the expression of our deep gratitude.
This gratitude, we also would like to express it to all those who, during these ten last years, relayed the presidency of our Network to make it today, more than a simple framework of exchanges on issues relating to audiovisual regulation, an essential vector of intercultural dialogue in the Mediterranean circumference.
The vocation of our Network is also to expand itself in order to gather the greatest number of Mediterranean independent regulators. In this respect, this meeting is an open invitation for all those who wish to join us and add their contribution to this edifice that we are building together.
If Morocco is known for its sense of hospitality, welcome and human warmth, Marrakech is the incarnation of all this. Therefore, I invite you to fully enjoy your stay and I wish great success to our meeting.
Ahmed GHAZALI
President of the Mediterranean Network of Regulatory Authorities
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