The 34th General Assembly of the Arab States Broadcasting Union  took place in Kuwait City and opened with the elections of the new Director General.

Abdelrahim Suleiman was appointed following a tight race against three other candidates. He is currently Technical Director of ASBU and prominent member of the World Broadcasting Union Technical Committee.

Mr Suleiman will run the organisation from January 2015 to December 2018, and replaces Salah Eddine Maaoui, who was in appointment for 8 years.

This comes at a particularly important time of change for the EBU and other Unions, who have shared the recent success of campaigns such as the allocation of radio spectrum within the ITU for broadcasting, the preparation of the digital switch off in the region and the drive against satellite intentional interferences.

Mr Suleiman’s priorities in his new position will be dealing with the reform of the statutes of the association. These intend to transform the union from one which is solely state broadcasters into an association of public service broadcasters. The General Assembly has been asked to approve an action plan to implement the principles and guidelines of the reform within the next two years

EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre expressed her thanks to Mr Maaoui and her best wishes to his successor, Mr Suleiman.

“I hope that the history of successful cooperation will continue in the next years, starting with the next World Radio Conference 2015 at the ITU, where the reasons of broadcasting world need to be strongly reaffirmed,” Ms Deltenre said.