At its recently held meeting, the EBU Board had to re-examine the matter of hosting of our 12th General Assembly that should take place in autumn 2023. This re-examination was made necessary because the candidate that had been already agreed upon, OVN from the Netherlands, had to withdraw their offer to host, due to financial constraints. Against the backdrop of this situation only one year ahead of the holding of the next GA, the Board decided the following:
1. To relaunch, with this email, an open call for candidacies to host the 12th EBU General Assembly to all EBU members. Candidacies must be sent to the EBU Secretary General at ebusg@euroblind.org with copy to the EBU secretariat at ebusecretariat@euroblind.org by the 30th of November of this year. Please use the form for expression of interest when submitting your candidacy. For your full information, We are also attaching a briefing document on what it entails to host the 12th GA, as well as a list of supported countries. The points outlined along with those documents should provide you all the necessary information to submit your expression of interest. The EBU Board will make a final decision about the country to host the GA at its meeting in early February 2023.
2. To stick to the plan of holding a face-to-face General Assembly rather than opting for a virtual one. This is mainly due to the importance of the GA, which is expected to bring new dynamics and energy to the future work of EBU. And this can be achieved much easier when all members are gathered in person!
3. To grant financial support from EBU’s own resources to the organisation hosting the GA. The amount will obviously depend on the overall budget of the GA, which varies strongly from one country to another, but a sum of up to 60,000 Euro can be made available for the GA.
4. To be a bit flexible as regards the date of holding the General Assembly. With the Board only being able to decide about the host country in early February 2023, the October GA becomes unlikely. So the Board will work with the selected country on the date but being realistic it will probably take place in the first quarter of 2024. With the 40th anniversary of EBU taking place that same year, symbolically, this may even present some advantages. And it would definitely constitute an acceptable variation from our Constitution that says “every four years”.
With those points and conditions in mind, we are looking forward to receiving your candidacies by end of November.