It is a real pleasure to welcome all of you in Tirana for this year’s South East Europe Media Conference, organized by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and I would like to thank you, dear Jan and your team for the excellent organization. It a real pleasure for us to welcome you to Tirana together with our Albanian counterpart.

I am glad to see such a broad group of participants that gathered here today: journalists, media experts, regulators, civil society organizations representatives, policymakers and OSCE colleagues from across the region. This excellent mix of perspectives and experience will enrich the conference in next two days.

The theme of the conference is very timely. Journalism is not only a profession or an industry. Journalism serves the public, it helps people understand complex developments, hold institutions accountable and take part in informed democratic debate. 

Public information spaces across Europe and beyond are being reshaped rapidly and profoundly. The places where citizens once gathered around a relatively common set of facts are fragmenting into thousands of parallel realities, driven by algorithms, accelerated by artificial intelligence and increasingly vulnerable to manipulation.

Across the OSCE region, and particularly through the work of OSCE field operations in South East Europe and the Representative on Freedom of the Media, we see how deeply these challenges are shared. While contexts may differ from one place to another, the pressures are strikingly similar: declining trust in institutions, information manipulation, reduced media pluralism, online hate speech, attacks on journalists, and growing uncertainty about what information can be trusted.

These are not isolated national issues, but regional challenges with regional consequences. This is precisely why cooperation matters, as no institution can address them alone. The response must be collective, co-ordinated and grounded in democratic principles.

The OSCE’s field operations across South East Europe, working together with our colleagues in Vienna, are uniquely positioned to contribute to this effort by supporting media freedom, strengthening media literacy, building institutional resilience, supporting legal and policy frameworks, and fostering dialogue across communities and borders.

But perhaps most importantly, they remind us that security today is not only about territory or infrastructure. It is also about the integrity of the information spaces in which citizens form opinions, participate in public life and make democratic choices.

Let me briefly turn your attention to Albania, where the OSCE Presence is mandated to support a free and fact-based media environment. Allow me to highlight some positive developments I have witnessed since assuming my role as Head of Presence.

The General Directorate of State Police has established a journalists’ safety focal point, which along with several legislative amendments, represents an important step toward strengthening the protection of media professionals. I would encourage continued close attention, together with the relevant authorities, to ensure prompt and effective follow-up on all cases affecting journalists.

There have been continued steps toward aligning the media and information environment with international standards, including efforts to improve regulatory frameworks and address long-standing governance challenges. In this context, media ownership transparency requirements have been strengthened, and I trust that the Audiovisual Media Authority will implement these provisions in the spirit in which they were adopted.

The media community in Albania, while not large in number, is knowledgeable, active, and plays a vital role in public discourse. It is therefore essential that their voices continue to be heard, engaged, and meaningfully included in policy discussions.

Importantly, in 2025, national authorities identified as one of its objectives the integration of media and information literacy into the official education curricula. This is a significant and forward-looking step, which the OSCE Presence is actively supporting in cooperation with relevant institutions and partners.

While these developments are encouraging, challenges to media freedom in Albania remain and merit continued attention. These include concerns related to the safety of journalists, economic pressures affecting the sustainability of independent media and online intimidation and smear campaigns.

Further efforts are also needed to strengthen transparency, editorial independence and the consistent implementation of legal protections, while supporting conditions that enable journalists to adhere to the highest standards of professional, ethical and impartial reporting. Continued constructive engagement of all actors will be essential to address these issues in line with Albania’s democratic commitments and international standards.

The Presence will continue to work towards a stronger media environment, and I look forward to the coming two days as an opportunity to focus on what works, to learn from one another’s experience, and to turn shared challenges into shared solutions in support of greater media freedom across our region.

Thank you!