Maria Rita Pasqualucci of the RAI Vatican Desk accepts the 2013 Gunnar Høidahl Award. (EBU)

Italian EBU Member RAI (Vatican Desk) won the 2013 Gunnar Høidahl Award for Excellence in the Eurovision News Exchange (EVN) on 12 November, at the eighth EBU News Assembly, in Marrakech.

Named after a former chairman of the EBU News Committee, the Gunnar Høidahl Award is presented to the Member that has made the most outstanding contribution to the News Exchange throughout the year.

This prize is awarded annually at the News Assembly, with nominees put forward by the Geneva news editors, and the winner selected by the whole of the News Exchange team.

The three 2013 finalists were:

• Denmark's TV2 for its consistently strong foreign coverage from numerous locations,
• the former ERT News Desk (Greece) for its outstanding dedication to the EVN under difficult circumstances, and
• RAI's Vatican Desk (Italy) for high-quality edits and scripts of VACTV/ ITRAI coverage and for detailed and proactive forward planning information.

EBU President Jean-Paul Philippot presented the award to Maria Rita Pasqualucci of the RAI Vatican Desk. Maria Rita joked that she expected to receive the the award in 2005, the year of the death of Pope John Paul II, but was happy to receive it "better late than never ".

The two day annual News Assembly meeting is taking place in Marrakech, Morrocco. The highlights this year include:

• proposed revision of the rules governing the Eurovision News Exchange,
• an illuminating perspective from Professor Hans Rosling - one of Time magazine’s 2012 world's 100 most influential people - on how global statistics can challenge common myths and misconceptions about the world, and
• a discussion about the future of public service media based on the findings of the EBU Vision2020 project.

Almost forty EBU Member organisations are represented at the meeting with 100 participants participating in the annual assembly